Munchkin Oratoria: A Loki Famiglia Story
by ArcMeow
Summary: This story will no longer be updated. The rewrite is currently in progress and some parts of this will be kept intact there. Thank you to everyone who's followed this first draft so far.
1. Vol 1 Prologue

**Volume 1**

 **Prologue**

The afternoon sun hung low against the guild hall's roof, its shadow creating a lull in the bustle of the crowd. People of all shapes and races, in clothes of all colors and cuts roamed the forefront of Orario's highest authority, each to their own beat and tone.

"Could you repeat that?"

"Sir, Mr. Deimne sir!" The hapless youth stood on attention to his non-superior: a hobbit of about two-thirds his height, an absurd sight to those otherwise not in the know.

"At ease"—Finn sighed—"we're not military." The hobbit was never one for ceremony and neither were the two in the same familia.

The people around them stared at the sight of a Loki high executive talking to some no-name adventurer. They were attracting too much attention for both Finn's tastes and the youth's confidence.

The blond shook his head. "You were saying?"

"We saw an adventurer down in the fifth floor with two goblins tied to his person, sir!" The youth did a salute, and Finn couldn't help another sigh.

He didn't need to ask further than that.

#

To most, this world was everything they could've asked for.

 _A resounding roar rang throughout the bright cavern, the high and solid stones reverberating from the force. In the distance, dull tremors shook the ground and lingered into an ever present thrum._

Each day was ripe with adventure, peril, and wonder—and life was never dull for the bold. Such was the ancient and tested labyrinth city of Orario—a hodgepodge filled to the brim with all walks and talks of life, both mortal and divine. A bustling city that catered to every want and need, even to a hunger for magic—or otherwise.

 _"They're coming," said a man clad in plate armor. He was standing with a group of various races also armored and armed with various weapons, and together, they stood shoulder to shoulder. Humans, hobbits, chienthropes, runarls, werewolves, hume bunnies, war tigers, boaz, elves, dwarves as well as a half-spirit of all things, all stood as brothers and sisters in arms. They formed a punitive force of eighty strong, rallied under a banner of a sinister clown._

Their major export consisted of: prime cut magic stones harvested fresh out of the dungeon; exotic raw materials of which adamantite was its chieftest trade; and major badasses from all races of all ages, sizes, and even orientations. While they had the ancient and near chthonic dungeon for tourism—and a major source of livelihood.

 _"Clash!" shouted a hobbit standing in front of all of them, and waved the banner they banded under in his hands with a sweeping motion. A series of thumps sounded out as the punitive force readied their arms._

 _"Prepare!" he shouted again._

The dungeon fed the city, and the adventurers fed the dungeon—but it wasn't always like that. Only after the descent of the gods did things start looking out for mortals as a whole—but even before, people adapted just the same. It just so happened they—I guess, we had a bigger advantage now compared to back then.

Well, people still die by the dozen anyway.

 _Separate from the main army, a group of seven stood out—eight, counting the hobbit with the banner._

 _A dwarf with an axe as tall as he, at about four feet long and two wide for the blade. An elf with a staff brimming with the richness of the elements, the unmistakable glow a sign of the powers it harnessed. A werewolf with silver hair and just as silver boots. An amazoness with a weapon as impressive as the dwarf's, a too thick double-bladed sword. Another amazoness with a belt of knives and twin short swords. A human girl with a single blade with a striking blue hilt. And, a young man, also human, wielding just a round shield and a sizeable bag._

Magic existed and persisted the whole world over, but there was only one place where crystallized mana could be harvested from—hence, Orario's overwhelming presence. Despite the countless perils, the lure of treasures still brought in adventurers—dungeon raiders. The rewards more than paid for the trouble it took; but, thanks to the mountains upon mountains of idiots who practically offed themselves, the horrible stigma remained: Orario was a death trap anyway.

Fed up with all the bad publicity—not to mention the intense demand for magic—a group eventually emerged to guide the lost sheep from the death trap that was a lack of common sense. The beginnings of the Guild installed themselves atop Orario's then growing town—led by one of the city's founding gods—and published three platitudes from the accounts of their own explorers and those wise enough to make it back up in an effort to stymie the high mortality rate.

People dying never bode well for business and security after all.

The three rules went: light was always present no matter how deep.

 _Hidden by the cliffs, a twisted shadow grew to the same height as the cavern's walls, its berth just as large. The ranks huddled closer together, watching for any unexpected developments. The light was always there, but so too did light deceive like the shadows._

The floors grew larger the lower one went.

 _Another roar issued, followed by piercing shrieks. The inhuman sounds echoed through the expansive space—more monsters joining the fray, born from the dungeon's walls and floors and ceilings and hidden corners._

And, monsters were always waiting just around the corner.

 _The thrum grew in intensity, and the shadow shuddered with the periodic tremors. Another roar sounded, an arm extended from the massive image, and it swung. A moment later, a boulder came crashing down towards Loki famiglia's front line._

Simple, easy to remember, but not very effective—people _still_ kept dying—but for the sake of what it was intended for, it worked anyway.

If there was always supposed to be light, then just avoid where there isn't. Always remember that floors got bigger and plan accordingly. And, when in doubt whether there'll be another few monsters waiting for you at the end of the hall and subsequently lead you into a death trap—it's most likely gonna be what'll happen if you don't turn back asap.

It was how it was.

 _The werewolf jumped forwards and met the tumbling rock, smashing it to pieces with his now burning silver boots. Cheers broke out as the warrior landed, though he still put on an annoyed look. "Weaklings," he said, and made his way back within the ranks._

 _"As always," said the dwarf with the axe, while the elf with the staff sighed._

 _"Let it slide," said the youth with the shield. The amazoness with the double-blade nodded to his words, while the human girl's hand went white knuckled at her grip on her weapon._

The dungeon was just that, an insatiable maw—not minding the pot calling the kettle black with the just as prolific greed of modern progress. People come in, raid the dungeon, some people die, they go back up: an endless cycle fueled by a mixture of need, curiosity, and sheer greed for a majority of the commerce type exploration familias.

 _The same hobbit shrugged, then struck his banner against the ground and gathered everyone's attention._

 _"Standard formation," he said, "shield, bow, staff." The entire familia barked in affirmation. "Chant and loose on my mark, cast on my next mark." Another bark. "No one dies today." Cheers broke out once more._

 _Satisfied with his orders, the hobbit turned to the group standing with him, and said, "Lead the attack, and make sure Balor doesn't reach us,"_

 _"Yes captain," they all answered._

 _"On my mark!" the hobbit raised the clown banner high, the sounds of stretched bow strings filling the air. Together, ancient murmurs of all tongues accompanied the motion, the scent of magic dispelling the earth's musk._

All who came to the dungeon knew of the price of their dreams—hence the waiver forms prior to registering nowadays—but even the threat of death could not deter the strongest of souls.

 _The trembling of the earth came louder as a cloud of dust appeared within sight._

 _"Hold!" the hobbit shouted, while the spells in preparation grew in power._

 _From the cloud, a horde of monsters—beasts with the bodies of primates and the horns of a goat, the fomoires of the forty-ninth floor—reared their ugly heads._

 _"Hold!" the hobbit shouted once more, the mass of magic nearing critical. He raised his flag as the air charged with more power, and the bows wound tighter. "Hold," he raised his voice louder._

This was life in Orario, and by extension, life with the dungeon.

 _No sooner had a second passed when the fomoires appeared in view when the same beasts crossed the distance of a hundred metres—half the length to the Loki familia. Their roars came sooner, the thrums even stronger._

 _The hobbit swung the flag down. "Loose!" On release, the air shook as a hundred arrows whistled towards the monsters, all flying straight and true. A beat later, screams rang out with the roars as flesh and muscle were torn from the beasts._

 _"Cast!" the hobbit shouted, bringing the flag down a second time, and the Loki familia released roaring wave after wave of light, fire, ice, wind, and all the other elements in between; and those caught in the onslaught were maimed, burned, pierced, frozen and all such, but the horde of monsters stayed their path._

Of all these characters though, there were the greatest aberrations: the lost ones.

Rather, the lost one, since I was the only one I knew of who came from a different dimension—not counting the gods.

 _"Shields!" shouted the hobbit, raising his flag, and a line of warriors planted themselves in front of the familia with their shields. "Spears!" Then two rows of spears lined themselves up with the wall._

 _A deeper resounding roar sounded out, shaking the air._

 _"_ He's _coming," said a different dwarf, this one holding up a shield as large as he. Behind him was a runarl with a spear, and behind the two men still was a chienthrope girl with a staff. Together they formed a basic unit, one of the many innovations proposed by the familias new executive a year ago._

 _"Just like two months ago," the runarl said, and laughed. Then, a gigantic furred arm dispelled the dust cloud from a distance, revealing a titanic fomoire, its single eye a bright red. "Oh, exactly, two months ago."_

 _"Not again," mumbled the deflated magician._

 _The hobbit turned to the earlier group, the elites of the familia, and said "Go."_

 _The seven leapt forwards into the fray, weapons out, and charged towards the horde._

My name is Thomas Sedley, and I never asked to end up in this—oh the irony—god forsaken world.


	2. Vol 1 Chapter 1

**Volume 1**

 **Chapter 1**

It should've been a normal day, that stupid Tuesday.

I was walking to work with phone in hand, reading the idle time away. The clouds didn't look any more ominous than an hour or two of rain at their worst, and judging by the annoyed traffic honking to a snail's pace, today was sure to be conducive for reading. Rush hour was best for indolent vices—unless you were the one behind the wheel, which is why I preferred walking. Crossing the street and dodging a stray newspaper floating in the stale wind, I swiped down the screen and checked the time: nine forty-five. I remember when I first started this job I made it a point to always show up thirty minutes early—with eight thirty at my latest, then the compliance department happened. Damned audit bastards.

Old street lamps on old sidewalks passed like an old cartoon's background while faded red fire hydrants punctuated every other block. Tulley was an older part of the city left behind by the times. There were no buildings higher up than twenty storeys, and its skyline was a uniform stonewashed grey—the structures having been built close to and aged together through the years. The streets were just as bland in dull asphalt, almost blending in uniform with the curb. Now, only one building stood out against the neutral drone. Hubert and Hubert Defense's office stuck out in vibrant aluminum paneling red like a screaming pimple whenever the sun rose or set, making the rest of the olden population complain. That, or a bloody dick according to those hippie protesters. I was half a mind from running from the restructuring meeting in an hour. Half because murder was illegal, but a guy could dream, and half because not showing up could cost me my cushy job.

A loud horn blew my ears out.

"Get off the road dumbass!" said the man in the too tight shirt from his beat-up sedan.

"Sorry," I said to the balding Pillsbury dough boy wannabe. I was too caught up with plotting a crime I'd failed to notice crossing into the next street. But I didn't recognize him from anywhere, so that's a small mercy at least. The one thing I hated about Tulley despite the nice coffee shops, parks, groceries, and pretty much everyone who lived there was that anyone who got on our roads magically turned into grade A assholes. Like it was some shitty spell the city cast on them. Then again, that's probably what happens when the subway doesn't cut through your part of the metro.

"Fucking idiot," the man grumbled, then sped for all of five feet before stopping at the next rush hour queue of near eternity.

I flipped him the bird in my head. Believe me when I say working for a military contractor doesn't help with anger management issues. Getting it done was easy enough in theory, but it's the clean-up after that really trips off those court cases. So yeah, that guy gets to maybe live for another few years if his road rage doesn't give him a stroke or heart attack somewhere down the road _before_ I go postal.

I went back on my way, merrily skipping—read as walked like a proper adult—to the schadenfreude of these poor louts suffering through traffic hell. My phone buzzed. It was ten now with the sun well above the low skyline, and I just received the first of today's shipment updates: munitions and replacement hammers were on point, but the barrels were delayed. Not outside of expectations, but things going out of plan still sucked anyway. I crossed the intersection and made my way down another row of buildings.

Then a call came in, it was Jim from IT.

"Hey Jim," I answered.

"Hey Tom," a woman's voice replied. Fuck. It was Laura, Jim's girlfriend and my teammate in analytics.

"H-hey Laura," shit, "is Jim doing alright?" Note to self, that no good sumbitch is dead to me.

"He's fine Tom," she said, terse. "Get your ass here. Now." I sighed. "I know where you live." That wasn't a threat but a statement of fact.

"I'm stuck in traffic, I'll be there soon," I said. Maybe if I booked it to St. George's hospital I can still make it to Doc Zimmer's first appointment for a quick game of hookie?

"Baker street, the green apartment building just after the deli. Second floor, room three."

Guess not. "I'm near the building already." I was five blocks away. "I'll be there soon."

"Good," she said. Then hung up.

That was that. I tightened the straps of my backpack and prayed all the little nicks and doodads wouldn't stab me accidentally when I started running. Laura was a great cook, and an even better friend, but when audit started breathing down her neck—our three years in college together went out the window faster than a guy could fall down a flight of stairs. Or like how I figured how long it'd take once she threw me off.

I braced for that first step and hoped I could make it to that bloody dick just in front of me. Thank you _not_ drill sergeant Lawson, for those wonderful—read as god awful—times in basic training.

Then the noise stopped.

And my next step made a loose _crunch_ instead of a clack.

That wasn't right.

I looked around and saw neither concrete or asphalt where I should on the ground—or buildings anywhere else.

"What." Instead, it looked like a scene straight out of a medieval town: cobblestone roads and rough-hewn masonry, wrought iron lamps—okay, those didn't change much—and people in tunics, robes, skimpy nighties, way too much leather, and more robes. Also, animal ears.

None of this made sense.

I met the gaze of a girl, blonde and maybe in her teens. She looked away in a hurry and got back to what she was doing: handling chickens. Live chickens. Scanning further, the bustle had other things I'd never seen before in the concrete jungle: baskets of fruits carried over sweat soaked backs, textiles and trinkets peddled on wooden carts with wooden wheels, people arguing with livestock standing beside them. My hand found my face.

 _Smack!_

Damn that hurt—and whatever this shit was wasn't a dream. Uneasy smiles broke out from those nearest me, but no out of the ordinary responses. A hallucination then? The panic settled into confusion and trickled down my fingers as the aroma of freshly lain shit wafted up my nostrils. My chest was a mess of butterflies and hot sauce flushes. As someone with four years of formal chemistry education—and had never done drugs before of any kind—the only conclusion here was that my brain had gone off the deep end. I didn't think I could hate a bunch of people to the point of going crazy—on top of getting a death threat from some murderous bitch—but hey, those blood-sucking bastards were just that bad I guess. Screw those audit pricks.

Also, if there was a god, may my death at Laura's hands be swift and painless. And failing that, then at least make it worthwhile.

I scrambled for my phone in the hopes of salvaging enough of my ass to shit with but got no signal—in the middle of the city. With a shitload of satellite dishes and antennas around. Supposedly. Did I just end up in another world? If I were lucky, maybe. If I were really unlucky, that'd still be a yes. The tell-tale smell of sun dried earth—as opposed to exhaust and stale garbage—added to some nagging worry at the back of my head. Right now wasn't the time for that though, breaking down in front of a crowd—whether hallucinated or not—just wasn't any way to go. I needed to get to the hospital.

I walked over to the nearest person while repeatedly sending messages to Laura about my sudden affliction. Oh god I'm so fucked. The dried dirt clung to my slacks from the small puffs I kicked up, and I stopped in front of a lady in a pair of black and blue trainers of a sort. She looked the least strange in terms of clothing compared to my dirtied grey suit.

"Hi, may I bother you to help me to St. George's hospital? It's right down the road, two blocks down." They even have this nice coffee shop nearby with the best macchiatos anywhere, enough to wash down an audit bastard's lingering distaste. I just needed to make sure I didn't get run over on the way seeing how I wasn't _seeing_ any traffic at all.

Her brows twitched, as her eyes narrowed. Did I say something wrong?

"I seem to be having an attack of sorts." On closer inspection, her clothes looked rough woven, like they were made of a tougher yarn despite their modern aesthetic. Behind her, a blond boy dressed in a yellow and purple frock; a female teen with green hair and pointy ears in robes and pants; and another blonde teen in a white backless dress and blue knee-high boots all stepped up to take her flanks. Their red-headed leader—why I figured that in this day and age I didn't know—stepped forward.

"Excuse me?" she said. Her companions drew puzzled looks.

A slight twinge of relief made me realize I'd been holding my breath. "I need medical attention and am suffering from some ailment right now. Could I ask you to take me down to St. George's hospital down the road?" Looking closer, her companions had blades with them, small and much larger than combat knives in size. They were light grey at a glance and were well polished to the point of shining against the light. Curiosity overrode panic—this was an amazingly detailed hallucination.

"Can you understand me?" the red-head asked, halfway between worry and unbridled excitement—two things that never made good for anyone on the receiving end. Like that one time with the head of field ops, Robert. Ex-military man. Lots of badass. Lots of gusto for shooting big guns. No regard for safety at all. Behind her, the three shared more clueless looks.

"Yes," I answered. The red-head broke out into a grin. A chill went down my back. "Now, about that hospital?"

"Kid"—she hung an arm around my shoulders—"you don't _need_ a hospital."

A lump got stuck in my throat. "Excuse me?"

She turned to the blond boy. "Finn, please take our guest here back to the familia base."

The one she called Finn just stared at the red-head's order. She tsked, then said something in a different language. The boy nodded—though his frown said otherwise. Behind them, the green-haired teen kept pointing at the three of us while making nagging gesture which the blond girl just nodded to.

Finn drew closer, his movements stiff. He had soft features and an uneasy smile that would've swept any sugar mom off her feet. Cute was justice, and I might not have minded going with this group given more normal circumstances.

I declined his outstretched hand. "I appreciate the offer, but I'd really prefer professional medical help instead." Like any sane person would.

The redhead let out a boisterous laugh. "You just made my day, boy." She said something to Finn again, and Finn's demeanor went from avoidant to driven in an instant.

Finn rushed me. I put up a hand to slap him away, but the next thing I knew I was already on his back—my one hundred and fifty pounds of five foot six—and carried like he would a small sack of potatoes over his less than four feet and not more than seventy pounds of skin and bones. What the flying fuck?!

"Please put me down," I said.

"No," the redhead replied.

I narrowed my eyes at her but she just stood there all smug. It was annoying. I struggled against the pipsqueak as hard as I could, flailing my arms and legs to break free but he wouldn't give and all I got out of it was my tumbler falling out of my bag. It rang against the cobblestones. The blonde girl picked it up and fumbled with the stainless-steel canister, then passed it to the pointy-eared teen who inspected it with transparent curiosity.

"Give up," the redhead said.

I frowned at her. "This kid doesn't make sense," I said, and made to move for the knife in my bag but my hand was stopped by the blonde girl. She shook her head at me.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," redhead said.

Frustration didn't even cut it close. This was insulting on top of threatening. "Is it money you want?" And I'll want a trace on these bastards later.

Redhead just laughed in my face. "You have no idea at all, do you?"

"Of what?"

"Of how deep into this you are right now."

"You're not making sense." I struggled some more, and still nothing.

"Let me break it down for you," redhead said. "You ended up in a different place than where you came from."

Right, I get threatened—possibly by my own hallucination—about some mysterious thing she won't mention and now she's telling me to take something she said as is. "Sure, that totally makes sense." I struggled some more.

"You'll thank me later for keeping you," she said.

"You mean held against my will?"

"You're free to scream if you think it'll help."

If the others around me didn't understand like how her lackeys did—wait, no, that can't be right. Why wouldn't the people around me understand? "Help!" I said, and besides a few strange looks, no one else did anything. Her lackeys were only slightly troubled. "What did you do?" I asked her.

"Nothing," she said, pointing a dainty finger at my nose, "but I think the better question is: what happened to _you_."

What did happen to me?

#

After that, things passed in a blur. Light and stones melted into each other as I rhythmically bobbed against the boy's steady pace. When I came to, I was still getting carried over his shoulder with the sun around noon-ish, which meant I hadn't been out for too long. Anyone in the same situation would've freaked out with whatever the hell was happening and just as confused. Why the hell didn't anyone help me? How come I'm talking to this weird ass lady? And, why the hell am I getting carried? Was I just hallucinating it all? Was I dreaming? The pain from when I slapped myself before should've disproved that, but that's assuming you really couldn't feel pain in a dream, and it's not as if anyone's ever proven it was impossible.

Or had they?

"Welcome back," the lady said, and gave my head a few pats. The weight of it didn't help settle the anxiety of whatever this was. It felt so real, to have her touch me like that, and each piece of evidence that pointed towards this really happening meant more and more that something other than what I expected was happening.

When did I start doubting?

I just glared at her.

"The silent treatment? Really? This late into the game?"

Her lackeys were still with us, and the scenery had changed from that more open courtyard like space to these narrower streets. The stones here were lighter in color, as if they were newer. We also passed a shirtless man scrubbing away at the walls with a crude brush. More people with different ears and tails and heights painted the backdrop, and more and more, this seemed all too natural.

"Not much I can say," I said. And as much as I hated to admit to it, what she did might have been for the best now that I was more lucid. Sure, I was screaming for a good portion of that hazy episode, but I wasn't too unreasonable. After all, I was draped over a kid's shoulders without a care in the world with my pleas for help not even phasing any passersby one bit. It was unsettling to consider this a normal occurrence for this lot.

"The name's Loki mind you," she said, "and you'd do yourself a favor introducing yourself to me."

Now that I wasn't panicking as much, I noticed how the people seemed to make way for our group when a trio of ladies sent flirtatious winks my—rather, Finn's way, and he just waved back. They half-pressed themselves closer to the wall, just enough to make space, but also enough to still brush against the blond. Just another quirk to whatever this was. Redhead smiled with an aside, and the pointy eared teen—dare I say, the elf, just rolled her eyes.

After the trio came a line of five, two men and three women, the former both in plate armor with one carrying a dull sword and shield and the other with a spear. The women had one dressed in robes like our elf had, another darker skinned one wearing what looked like just a bandeau with feathers as decorations, and a kid that looked as tall as Finn with a comically huge backpack. That was a scene I was sure I'd never seen before in any game, book, show, or movie.

Again, nothing was making sense—in a way I wanted it to. There was that lingering thought behind that seemed to have the answer, but that way laid madness. "Why did you take me?"

Loki looked back after waving to some large lady dressed in a maid outfit. And by large I meant like she could deadlift a car and still dance a jig. She also had some other women with her similarly dressed but much smaller in stature, with two of them bearing cat ears and another had pointy ones like our resident elf. Right. Elves. Cat-people. And… I guess hobbits? This sounded exactly like the start of some Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Again, madness.

"You were interesting," she said.

Resignation floated up from the pit of my tired guts. "And I suppose here's the part where you tell me I'm some special person?"

She nodded with a smile and said, "Looks like you're finally getting with the program." She frowned. "That idiom makes sense to you, yes?"

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Because where you came from might not have developed organized entertainment?"

That drew a blank, and it must've shown on my face. I couldn't even begin to… Just. That. And really, the only thing I could say was, "What'chu talkin' 'bout Loki?"

"All the evidence should point towards a conclusion now, umm?..."

Fine. "Thomas," I said, "my name's Thomas."

"Right, Thomas." She cleared her throat. "You can run away from it now, but you'll have to face the music." She gave me a look.

"Yes, I also know that idiom."

She nodded, satisfied. "And where else have you heard the name Loki before?" She pushed her cheek close to mine, literally rubbing it in.

And all that resignation was washed away with a shit draining dread that pulled all the blood away from my fingers and toes, making my head swim from the influx of panic that was kept at bay by avoiding the real—fuck—issue at hand. I wanted to just cry and scream some more, and insanity was much better than this clarity of thought that brought the finest of my focus on the small breeze that carried with it the smell of freshly baked bread and burnt wood. The feel of Finn's rougher clothes rubbing against my smooth cotton had been nagging me all this while, and now. Only now, did I really get the damned brunt of it hit me like a truck.

And in the teeniest, tiniest voice, I said, "I'm not supposed to be here."

Loki laughed like the madman of myth, except she was a she, and thankfully much cuter than I ever imagined the giant born trickster god. Goddess. Honestly, it didn't even matter now. She kept laughing a good long while with Finn and the rest of her buddies just carrying on with life. From a corner of the elf's eyes I could see clear exhaustion, and it was the most human I'd ever seen of her. My gaze met Finn's and his expression softened, like he was feeling pity… or was that empathy? I couldn't tell which was worse. The blonde girl was simply blank.

"If you were smarter, you should've ran Thomas," Loki said with a fox's grin plastered across her mug.

"And with how you had Finn here catch me I bet that would've worked out well."

She nodded. "Glad to see I didn't pick up an idiot."

"That's not what Laura would've said," I muttered under my breath. Still… Fuck. Okay, let's for one second assume I really were in another world. How the hell was time passing back in my world? Was I already dead? Did I get here from some dimensional rift or something?

A pair of hands brought me face to face with a not bad face. "You have this thing you do with your eyes darting around whenever you think," Loki said. And good lord did her eyes pierce into mine like they saw everything.

"My job makes me think a lot," I said, and tried to pull myself back but she wouldn't let me.

"Well," she said, letting me go, "just try to get used to things for now. Overthinking will just make you suffer more, and no, you don't have a choice with coming back with me to my home."

Did I even have a choice in the first place? Whatever. At least I wasn't left in the dust to fend for myself. "Next thing you're gonna tell me something like you live in a castle."

"I do," she said with a wink. She gestured to the three with her. "We all do."

"Okay," I said, "not the craziest thing I'd heard today."

Loki nodded at Finn. "You can put him down now," she said, and Finn frowned at her. Loki face-palmed then said some unintelligible words, and I was let down.

"Thank you," I said, dusting myself off and trying to shake away the slight vertigo from the shift in position. Defeat made me feel like puking, but if I could hold it through a small panic attack while getting restrained by a hobbit—fine, let's just call the hobbit a hobbit. Assuming that's what they called his kind here—oh good lord this is all so fucked up.

Loki chopped at my head. "Stop thinking."

It didn't hurt. "Right, right." Finn bowed a bit at me with a wry smile.

"We're almost there," Loki said.

With that, the narrow streets gave way to a larger space, this one more orderly with the rows of shops and some people eating and making merry. It looked like a festival was underway, but there were no decorations to signify so. Granted I was judging it based on my understanding of how festivals went. Loki waved to the people there, and so did Finn and the elf, while the blonde girl was assaulted by two dark skinned girls, one in a yellow bandeau like I saw another lady in earlier, and the other in what could only be called a red bikini top. They dragged the blonde away and red bikini gave Finn a smoldering look that made me feel like a dirty slab of beef. Finn smiled as they excused themselves, but his smile hid its fair share of worries, like for his chastity.

"You guys are famous?" That would explain the reverence from those before.

"You can say that," Loki said, then dove for a lady with bunny ears and thigh high socks—but was dodged, only for another lady with cat ears to also get out of the way, and for Loki to hit home with an elf girl in a pink dress. She groped the girl without a second thought and I just had to step in.

I pulled Loki away from the elf by the shoulders, giving the latter a big enough gap to slip away and run.

Loki broke free of my grip to give chase, but the elf was already too far away. She turned back, angry. "Why would you even do that?"

"I should be the one saying that!" This ranked just below me freaking out about this being another world on the scale of crazy shit today. "And how'd you even get away with that? Where were the police or something?"

Loki flipped me the bird. "I'm a goddess, I can do what I want."

What do you even reply to that. _Was_ she a god? "Like create from nothing kind of god?"

Loki nodded. "Thaaat's me" she said with a drawn-out flair. "But things have changed since coming down so I'm not _that_ powerful anymore. In this form at least."

"What?"

"Don't bother with the details for now"—she put her hands to her hips and leaned over—"come on, I've still got to make you mine." She took my hand and pulled me towards where the people were thickest.

"Excuse me?"

Loki paused, and her usual grin turned into a wicked smile. "Naughty boy," she said, but kept walking.

"No." I shook my head. "Just no."

Loki didn't bother listening and just dragged me along. "It's the castle I told you about, aren't you the least bit excited?" She pointed in the distance and yes, there really was a castle like she said. It was a fiery red masonry of jagged edges and twisted spires.

"People live there?" Dude, that place looked like it housed the end game's demon lord… which, considering the owner, didn't seem far off. "Did I get dragged into some cult?" And, she's been waving to everyone here like they all knew her. I guess it came with being a god? Or were they like Finn and the others? Followers of a kind?

"You're technically not wrong," Loki said.

"That doesn't improve the situation." Wait, so this really was a cult?!

"Ah, but it makes it interesting!"

Okay Thomas, let's think this through for—

The same pair of hands brought me back to the now. "If you keep doing this even inside the dungeon you'll really end up getting killed."

"What the hell are you talking about? Dungeon? Are you kidding me? Is this really some Dungeons and Dragons setting with all these elves, hobbits… and"—I pointed at a bearded stocky man standing next to Finn—"dwarves?"

Loki gave me a patronizing pat on the shoulder with the same smug look. "Complete with the levels."

Huh?

"You heard right," she said, "Finn over there is one of my highest level children, a level six. Ah, and the dwarf next to him is Gareth, also a level six, and the elf with us before was also level six, Riveria."

I am such a goddamn nerd.

"I'm not making this up," she said, still with the smug look, "and the blonde with us, Aiz, was a level five with the title of Sword Princess." She smirked.

I am so convinced this is all a hallucination now.

Loki gestured to the people around us, and said, "And everyone you've been seeing since we passed that gate before are all my followers." She stood real darn proud and satisfied with herself.

"You know what, sure, I can roll"—heh—"with this." Levels, Dungeons and Dragons, elves, gods… "And I suppose magic also exists? Ah, and monsters for gaining experience."

Loki stroked some imaginary bead while nodding. "I'm really glad I picked you up before anyone else could."

Anyone else? "Other gods you mean?"

"Yep."

"So if you're Loki then gods like Odin"—she nodded—", Thor"—nod—", Freya"—nod, grumble, and stomp on the ground. Okay, bad blood, eh? "Uh, maybe Zeus?"

Loki shook a hand in front of her, and said, "Nah, he'd already died and went back to Heaven."

"…Right. Ares?"

Loki's grin turned to disgust. "If stupid had a name, it'd be Ares. Violent and stupid with a really loud mouth."

"That's a lot of hostility. What the hell did he do to you anyway?"

Loki's smiling eyes changed into an image of death. "He killed my bonsai."

"Yeah, okay. That." What the hell is even happening anymore? "God, what kinds of drugs are they pumping into me."

Loki slapped me real hard and loud enough to get everyone's attention.

"Dammit that hurt!"

All eyes turned to us. "Did that help?"

My right cheek stung like hell, I rubbed it with a hand. "Why would you even do that?"

Loki said a few things to the crowd, then they went back to their usual business. These people really were her followers. Then she took my face again and pulled me close, close enough for our noses to be touching. "Look at me," she said. And some stupid reaction made me feel like kissing her. "Your pupils were really dilated, and you might not have noticed but you were getting really red every now and then whenever you went into one of your thinking spirals."

"What?"

"You were going through an Acute Stress Reaction," she said, hands firm against my face. "PTSD? Ring a bell?"

"An acute what now? And PTSD?" I was going through—

She pinched my cheeks. "You don't read a lot on medicine?"

"Medicine?"

Loki groaned. "Ugh, just say: _thank you Loki_."

"Uhh… thank you, Loki?"

She released me. "Good. Let's get you inside."

#

The castle was a lot more welcoming inside with pastel blues and greens filling the first floor, with intricate stonework for the walls and floor. Chairs and tables were in every other corner with sofas and bookshelves taking center stage in some of the bigger spaces. It was a living room with a lot of people doing said living in mind, with big open windows letting in a lot of light that made the carpet really stand out with its swirling designs. There were also several potted plants on the floor and hung against the walls, giving the place a very homely and refreshing feel. And, were those chandeliers?

"Welcome to your new home," Loki said. "I'll introduce you to everyone later, Status first."

Only after Loki told me about my stress reaction thing did I notice my heart was beating hard against my chest, even making my ears echo. I tried my best to calm down after, but a little slip was all it took to make the panic all come back. Her warm hand against mine was a comfort I didn't think possible, but I wouldn't dare let go of it now. Everything of mine was numb yet I kept walking, listening to her voice and reminding me of the now. "Those are the levels thing?"

"Yeah," she said. "Up we go. My room's on an upper floor."

She led me up a flight of stairs lined with a dark blue carpet, the stone beneath a cool grey. The hand holds were done with intricate wood carvings like Celtic knots, which was a little weird since Loki was part of the Norse pantheon. We passed the second floor and went straight up for the third, and the hall was lined with doors every three or so meters with what could only be called lamps exuding a white light from a floating crystal between each.

I pointed at the thing. "And I suppose that's a sample of magic? The crystal is probably the source while that bracket thing around it with glowing writing is what's consuming the mana and executing said magic?"

Loki smiled. "Close, but not complete. And you're taking this better than before." She hummed in approval.

I shrugged. "You can only have your worldview upturned so many times in a day and still be surprised." Bile rose up but I managed to swallow it in time.

We continued towards the end of the hall and turned left to a double door with grander looking lamps beside it. In front of it was a balcony overlooking the courtyard of the property where her other followers could be seen going about their daily lives. There was a sofa hidden from the sunlight by the awning with some well-worn cushions and a small side table with a couple of books on them. Looking out, I saw Finn holding a spear and I guess instructing a few others, showing them some swings and stabs. We were high enough to get a good view but not so high that people's faces blurred out of detail.

"You said they were your children?" What a strange thing to call your followers.

"Not biologically if that's what you're asking," she said with a chuckle. "You'll see soon enough."

She opened the double doors and led me inside to a large room. There was a four poster bed inside with deep blue covers, and to the left of it was an ornate dresser and gilded from the looks of it. The room also had a shelf full of plushies of different animal and non-animal figures. And like a shrine, there was a centerpiece of a glass case with… soiled panties?

"I'm not even gonna ask."

"I'm not letting you sniff them," she said with a fire behind those fox eyes.

"You went full pervert, Loki," I said, "you don't go full pervert." Okay, I cannot be that fucked up enough to think all this up. Yeah, fine, this is another world. No drugs at all in my system and no more doubts about my subconscious.

"Hush you," she said. "Now put your bag down somewhere and let's get this over with."

I put down my bag near the bed. Had this been back on Earth, was this place also called Earth? Whatever. This would've been a pretty hot development.

"And I get you're happy to fantasize but we're not here to do that, heck, at least take me to dinner first!"

I frowned at her. "You're still a lady you know, and an attractive one to me, the quirks and perversions just really make it weird to be."

"You talk too much," she said, "now strip."

I was about to say something but thought better and simply kept it shut. Not the craziest I'd heard today. I saw the glass case. And not the craziest I'd seen either. "Can I at least take a shower first? And whatever happened to dinner?" I took off my suit jacket and started on my shirt.

"Just the tip."

I gagged.

She laughed real loud again and even slapped my back, enough to sting but not hurt. Though it did make me feel something else. "I mean the top!" She poked my cheek with a finger. "At least now you're blushing, and jeez, calm down already, I can still see you have goosebumps."

"I did?" I checked my arm. "I do." I took another few breaths. "You do this often?"

"Get men to strip in my room?"

I stared at her, then turned back to finish taking off my clothes.

"I'm kidding." She stuck a little pink tongue out. "Yeah, a lot of my younger children still get skittish."

I chuckled. "You sure don't look like you've had a lot yet."

A pillow hit my back. "Look at you cracking jokes," she said, and patted my head a few times. She hugged me from behind. I was taller than her, but it felt just as nice and warm as her hand before. I was also made painfully aware of her body pressed against mine and the smell of cinnamon. She was really soft. "Don't worry," Loki said, "I'll be sure to take care of you."

She let me go and I took off my shirt. "What happens next?" I dared to ask. The light in her room was just right to see everything with, and her red eyes were a sight to behold in the girly room. I swallowed hard. She reached out with a hand to my cheek—and pinched hard. "Hey!"

She puffed her cheeks. "Teasing you works too well," she said with a pink tinge. Loki then pulled out the stool from her dresser and set it near the bed. She gave the seat a pat. "Sit here with your back to me and I'll grant you my blessing."

I shook away the surprisingly embarrassing thing just now. I was so confused by everything and now a cute girl was telling me weird ass things on top of going off character with that last thing! But I've already gone ahead with everything, let's just see this through to the end. "Here, yeah?" I took my seat and tried to still the beating of my heart. It was surreal, the heat from where she hugged me.

Loki cleared her throat and sat by the bed. "Ah," she said.

I turned to look but her hand stopped my head, "Don't look here."

"Is it a secret god thing?"

"Ah, sure. Whatever." She sighed. "This might feel a bit weird the first time."

A shiver went down my back. What the hell was up with this meek tone!? "You're being real cute now, you know?"

She pinched my side. It didn't hurt as much. "Shut up! I need to concentrate!"

Silence. All that remained was the sound of our breathing. Then something cool touched my back—and from it a great heat radiated outward, filling the room with a bright glow. "What?"

"Ah, bright!" She stopped my head again from turning back. "I got this."

Sweeping sensations made trails on my back, and I think it was Loki drawing shapes against my skin. The warmth of it ebbed and flowed, like some weights were shifting within me and carrying my conscious.

"What the heck?!" she said, and again she stopped me from turning back. "Stop squirming!"

"You made light come from my skin, of course I'm gonna be concerned!"

"It's magic, just let it happen!" A pause. "Wow, you really enjoyed what we were doing earlier, eh?"

What? Shit, did she see my tent?! "Huh?"

"Don't mind what I said, we have an empathic link right now, and… wow, you really do go crazy with your porn, eh?"

"You're just saying that!"

The great weights within now had the sensation of swirling pools of… something, both coming out and coming it at once. The light from the room's lamp dimmed, while the light from my back grew in intensity.

"So you had a thing for this Laura?" she said with a patronizing tone. "And damn, Tom, you really shouldn't ask someone to get together with you over the internet."

Shit. "What else are you seeing!?"

"Everything," she said with a shaky voice. "And wow, what's this… about… flat chests?!"

"Nothing!"

Then the light just exploded in brightness and Loki screamed as the glow reached a climax. No pun intended.

The doors to the room were thrown off their hinges by a squad of armed people with Finn at the lead. "Goddess Loki!" he said, spear in hand.

Our eyes met. Then his gaze went down to where Loki was now just magically sitting on top of me who had fallen on my back against the floor. How we ended up here, I didn't know or understand, just that Loki spazzed when the light went haywire from that blessing thing of hers and did whatever weird ass shit to my soul—and yes, I felt my _soul_ get manhandled for some reason and it was… hot, to some extent but also really really really scary.

"I'm sorry for intruding." Finn shooed the other armed people outside away.

"It's not what it looks like!" But all I got was a…

"Please take care of our wayward goddess."

The doors closed, and there Loki was still out of her wits. Groaning, I think. The room's light went back to normal, while the stool I sat on was busted beyond recognition under me. Which surprisingly didn't hurt. Also, Loki's butt on top of me was starting to get…

 _What the hell was that?!_

"You said something?" I asked Loki. Also, did I just talk to Finn earlier?

Her eyes finally moved and met mine. Surprise. Wonder. Embarrassment. Lust. Wait. Lust?

She got off in a flash went to her bed, hiding under her covers and flustered like a hissing cat. "Hisssss." Exactly like a hissing cat. She pointed a shaky finger at me, the shock on her face clear for all the world—clear for me to see.

"You're really freaking me out here." She was the one all flirty and shit earlier and acting as if she had her crap together and figured out all ways to Tuesday and back. And what the hell was up with her anyway? What the hell was with my chin itching? I scratched it and felt the scruff scratch back. I was clean shaven from this morning. "The hell."

"…bs." Loki sounded like an idiot. "Hey! I heard that!"

"What?"

"You called me an idiot!"

"In my head yea—"

Loki, for lack of a better word, attacked me from her covered position by shoving her delicate hand over my mouth. This looked like the start of some doujin.

"Stooop!" she said, her face red as hell.

I broke free of her attempts to gag me, and saw a few veins on the back of my hand. I wasn't _that_ thin. I looked at my hands, they were more slender… and saw the hard muscle beneath my arms and… I had abs?! I had a magic fucking six-pack?! My eyes met a just as wide-eyed Loki. Then I scrambled for the mirror… and saw me. Or at least, the me from back in college when I was still doing sports. The me who had, at the time, could swim a few kilometers without a sweat and climb up to the tenth floor and back without a worry.

Loki poked my belly, or lack thereof. "What happened to you?"

"Shouldn't you be the one to know?!"

 _Holy smoking hell, this piece of ass is mine._

"Excuse me?!"

Loki and I were like two deer caught in each other's headlights. She covered her mouth.

 _You can hear my thoughts?!_

"I can hear your thoughts?!"

 _You like flat chests?_

"All boobs are good."

She slapped my shoulder. "Stop raising flags dammit!"

#

When we both finally calmed down, she remembered her position long enough to set this piece of paper on my back to copy my Status so I could see too.

#

 **Level 1**

Strength = I0

Endurance = I0

Dexterity = I0

Agility = I0

Magic = I0

Madness Spectrum = I

Tranquil Intervention = I

World Walker = I

Fated Actor = I

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

#

"You're bullshit," she said. She was sitting on her bed while I sat on the floor, and already dressed again. "You've got three Developmental Abilities just for coming to this world and another from me unwittingly saving you from the madness of coming here! Plus, you have a Magic that empathically links you to me, and a Skill that translates everything said around you to something you can understand!" She flicked the paper in her hands like it was a dirty rag.

"Don't sweat it," I said. The scandalized look she had was simply priceless. "It's a common trope of those summoned hero stories anyway, and weren't you the one displaying knowledge outside this place's norms? You even asked me about idioms of all things."

"Yeah," she said, "but that's because I knew about those things when I was still in Heaven! You, though. You're something this world has never seen before."

"A place with magic ought to—"

"No. I'm gonna stop you right there." Annoyed would've been an understatement. She still looked cute though. "And stop it with the Stockholm Syndrome!"

I shrugged. "If you saw enough to learn about my and Laura's history then you would've known why I was attracted to her in the first place."

"Geh." She waved her arms about. "Back on topic!" Loki cleared her throat. She was surprisingly weak to getting teased back. Loki tsked.

"Stopping."

"It's distracting."

"Understood."

I wonder what she looks like naked though? And could goddesses get pregnant? Biology would be a very interesting—I was smothered with a pillow.

"I didn't see anyone summon you," she said, taking on a dead serious tone. "But your Developmental Ability Fated Actor was revealed to be granted to those who answered some summon."

"What do you mean, revealed? Shouldn't you know everything as a god?"

"I'm flesh and blood right now so I don't have access to all my godly powers, so I'm just as lost as you. Those idiots back in Heaven probably have some idea though, but this is beyond me."

"Hold up. You keep mentioning heaven, is it like a capital G god heaven?"

"What? No, not like that. Just gods. That higher power stuff even I don't know about."

"Still, if magic exis—"

"Stop using magic as an excuse," Loki snapped. "Magic follows laws just like physics, and not everything is possible with magic."

"And dimensional transfers?"

"How'd you think you got here?"

"Fair enough."

"And stop distracting me, and you better make damn sure you shave after this. That stubble doesn't look good on you."

"Really? But I figured it'd look better."

"It'd get in the way," she grumbled.

"I heard that."

Loki groaned. "Someone else in Heaven might have summoned you. Why you? I don't know, but about getting back to your world, it should be possible."

"Cool, and how do I do that?"

"By ascending to godhood yourself."

"I can do that?" Holy shit for real?!

"Yes, but it's a lot harder than it sounds." Loki massaged her temples. "Look, I can't say how long it'll take, but it's definitely possible. I just can't say what would've already happened to your world, alright?"

A heavy silence remained.

"But its still something I can do." Panic shot through me, but, it was more manageable than before. Fear was still there. Lots of it. Fear of not being enough, of failing, of being too late. But it was something. "I can't not do anything."

"I know," she said with a sad smile.

"I won't die without a fight."

"I know. And that's why I'm making sure you can put up good one no matter who." Then that wicked grin returned. "And until you do reach that godhood, which you hopefully do one day, I'll be putting you to work."

"Give and take after all. What do you have in mind though?"

"Remember that empathic link of ours?"

I nodded.

"It's a very rare ability that no one else in our familia has, that's what we call our followers mind you, children under our familia. And you're the first one to get it."

As someone who really treasures her people, I can see the merit of it to her. "So what necessitates such a thing anyway? I mean, long distance communication is amazing, but how far away are we talking anyway?"

Loki shook her head. "Not far away, but deep below." She put a hand on my shoulder. "Rejoice, Tom. Dungeons and dragons are real. Though there's just one Dungeon. Ah, but there's a buttload of annoying dragons down at the fifty-second floor. I'll be sure to get Finn to take you there sometime."

"So… a magic dungeon that drops loot and people can make money off of?"

"Yep."

"And I have a Status with Magic and Skills?"

"Yep."

"Is this an RPG?"

"It was a fun system when we thought about it at the time, so, yeah, sorta."

"And what, reaching godhood is like a new game plus?"

Loki looked troubled for a moment. "That's a good question."

"That's not an answer."

#

The introduction to the rest of the Loki Familia was done over dinner, with Loki taking the time to get me all dressed up as a proper citizen of Not Earth. The people here, people including humans, beastkin, elves, dwarves, and spirits, never bothered naming the planet since the gods kinda came in and interrupted the whole golden age thing. Though they did save them from the threat of the Dungeon and its monsters, so it was more like the golden age couldn't happen and then said gods got bored of waiting. Bunch of no good bums.

"I heard that!"

"You agree anyway!"

"But that blanket statement includes me!"

"Fair."

We didn't tell everyone else the whole story but the so called familia executives were all gathered together for my second introduction, hence the meeting tonight in Loki's room. They all stood around me who was sitting together with Loki on her bed. The executives were the highest level members and likewise the strongest, composed of: Riveria the elf, Finn the hobbit, Aiz the human, a dwarf, two amazonesses—I didn't know the plural—, and a beastman for a total of seven people.

"You've already met Finn," Loki said, gesturing at him.

He gave me a thumbs up. "Please keep her away from everyone."

Riveria, Aiz, and the two amazonesses nodded.

Loki ignored his comment and went on, "I already told you about Riveria, a high elf, and Aiz, a human."

Aiz and Riveria bowed to me, and the latter said, "I apologize on behalf of Loki, but I guess you got a good deal out of it?" Her eyes were smiling but her lips were not.

"She's pretty savage."

"Don't let her calm looks fool you, there's a fire hidden under those loins." Loki was huffing by the time she said so.

Aiz looked troubled but Riveria didn't even bat an eye.

"She takes some getting used to," the high elf said.

"I noticed."

"Hey!" Loki recovered. "The scruffy guy is Bete, a werewolf."

"He transforms under the moon?"

"How'd you know?" said the gangster like roughneck.

"Magic," I said with accompanying jazz hands.

The amazoness with the yellow bandeau looked at me like I was a bug. "How come he sounds a lot like Loki?"

Loki just smiled at her all smug. Glad to see it wasn't just me she did that too. "The two amazons"—Loki smirked at me—"are Tione, the one in red, and Tiona, the one in yellow. And no, I don't force them to dress like that."

"That's good to hear," sorta.

The two girls bowed anyway.

"And that's Gareth, a dwarf," Loki said, gesturing at the stout man with the solid and stocky body. "He'll be the one in charge of training you for a while."

Gareth nodded. "I'll be sure to get him up to speed."

I stood up and returned the bow to the others, "It's a pleasure to meet everyone. And next comes the story of how I got here."

Finn raised an eyebrow but the others were unreadable. And so it went that I told them my story from where I came from and when I just magically appeared in this place up to Finn and the others meeting me and then now that I just so happened to have become the new guy in the family. Familia. Whatever.

"And you want to go back to your world?" Finn asked.

There was no malice in that question, just plain unadulterated curiosity. Spend enough time with someone from Finance and you eventually pick up on even the smallest nuances in language. Though, wasn't what I was hearing just translated via some magic? "Yes."

He nodded. "It's good to have a goal. I was worried for you back when we first met, Loki said she'd found a new toy but you were out of your wits like a madman for a while."

"Thank you for taking care me."

Bete raised his hand next. "And you're a level one?" He tsked.

"Yes." Such a rude fellow.

"With four developmental abilities, a skill, and a spell for communication," Gareth added. "No doubt you would be useful to us."

"I'm gonna be stuck here for a while anyway, might as well make the best of it."

"That's a good way of looking at it."

 _Pretty words from someone who almost got PTSD just from freaking out._

Hey! That was a perfectly valid reaction to the shit I found myself in.

Tiona raised her hand. "We'll be taking him down to the fiftieth floor and beyond?"

"Not until he reaches level two," Loki said. At that, everyone turned serious. "Don't worry, his abilities all make him much hardier than your average level one."

"The next expedition is scheduled in two months," Finn said, "how long will we have to postpone?"

"That all depends on Thomas here," Loki said, "best start grinding, no?"

"Kill monsters, right." I sighed. No time like the present. "I've always wanted to try killing something." Who knows, maybe if I imagine I was killing monsters like I was killing those assholes in audit then I might end up with some special magic or something.

 _It doesn't work like that._

Hush you.

"Let's just see how he does for now," Gareth said. "If worse comes to worse, I'll just stuff him in a backpack and carry him myself." The dwarf laughed like a foghorn.

Loki smiled. "That is a damn good idea."

"You can't be serious," I told her.

"Give up," Aiz said, shaking her head.

"That solves our problem then," Loki said with a clap of her hands, "Gareth, please arm Thomas with the good stuff, we need him powerleveled through the roof as soon as possible."

"Gladly," the dwarf said. It wasn't reassuring.

With that, Loki adjourned the meeting and the others all said their good nights and went back to their rooms. Save for Gareth whom I was now walking with to the familia's armory. The night time Twilight Manor, the familia base's name, was a sight to behold with its majestic lights all fueled by the magic stones the adventurers retrieved from the dungeon. And it was a total cash cow too, with this place having a monopoly on them, no wonder this place was so coveted by Ares.

"Seems you got roped into joining?" Gareth asked, he had on an easy smile.

"It's alright with me," I said, "Loki was interesting enough."

"I see. And this thing with Loki earlier?" He smirked. Was this a common trait with everyone here? "I heard you and the goddess were… fraternizing." I bet Loki loved spreading rumors herself.

"Not exactly," I said, "I'll just let her share what he wants." Petty vengeance is an age old past time after all.

"A goddess though, Tom." There was reverence behind that tone. "No wonder you got to join the executives so soon."

"I think it was more because of passing the World Boundary that made me so… strange." Loki said that was why I received some of my skills, like it remade me, in a way.

"Aye," Gareth said, "legends do mention that, and with the gods and all, it was only a matter of time."

Ah, resignation, it was a common flavor after all.

We walked out of the hallway and into a veranda with flowers adorning either side, there were streetlamps here, also made of the same magical technology as the chandeliers, probably, but in a different shape. The courtyard too was also just as lively with people still going about their business. It was an unlikely reminder of home, to be so alright with the night.

"And the magic?" Gareth caught me staring at the lamps.

"Beautiful."

He laughed with a gentle roll, like a grandfather with his grandkids. "I suppose you have family?"

"My parents and siblings, yeah."

Gareth nodded. "You close with them, I reckon?"

"Yeah." I breathed out. "I miss them."

"Don't we all?"

We went on with our way, and I didn't bother asking Gareth the question he didn't look like he felt like answering. He was a person just like me, it seemed. One with worries all the same. It didn't take long for us to reach the end of the bridge and into another hallway, this one rougher looking and less decorated than the main building. He led me down the stairs and into a heavyset door, which opened with neither creak or squeak.

"More magic?"

"Nah," he said with a smile, "just good 'ol dwarven expertise."

The doors fully opened and the lights came on, revealing a row of shelves filled with all sorts of doodads. There were pieces of plate armor here and there, swords, knives, spears, and staves of different shapes and colors. There were shields too, and some leather pieces.

"This here's one of the familia's pride, our little vault of treasures." He walked in and went for the leather pieces. "You're free to take what you can use, just don't be greedy." He raised a brow and I replied with a nod.

"Greed would just end up killing me."

#

The following morning, I was woken up by the fresh air that wafted— There was no such thing as fresh air in the city. I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling and got up from bed and saw an all too familiar bag. I took a deep breath and rubbed my face with my hands. It wasn't a dream. It wasn't some hallucination. It wasn't some happy fantasy. It was all real.

I grabbed my pillow and screamed into it, the down muffling the sound so well it was surprising. There was no technology based air-conditioning in this world, but the soft blue glow of the magic cooler mounted in my room was the thing that made the air comfortable, it also didn't remove the scent of leaves and earth from the air. It was amazing, to say the least. I also had a mini-fridge, or a small magic cooler I can use to store some food in but all it had was water. Since I didn't own anything yet. Though Loki did promise to share some chocolate.

Loki. Dear god, Loki. Literally. That was… a very strange experience, to flirt so openly with a goddess. Not unwelcome, but definitely unexpected.

I got off the bed, the rich carpet luscious against my toes and made my way to my new closet. I was given an executive's room all to myself just for having this magic and my future value with this familia, and sure there were doubts with how everything just seemed to fall into place, but I'll take what conveniences I could get. I had nothing to my name in this world. Not even the magic that now made itself present in and transformed my body.

The face looking back from the mirror was both me and not me. It was the me reborn from all those years ago when I was much younger and less inured to the world, when everything was so fresh and wonderful. The time before taxes and the ever present reality of death. It was… nostalgic, and disturbing at the same time. It also occurred to me that this Dungeon I was supposed to go to could very well kill me, but, at the end of the day, did it really matter? Live to tell the tale presumes I still had something to go back to?

But I wouldn't let me give up. I wasn't about to just accept this fate, magic or not. My family and all my friends are still back from where I came from, and hallucination or not, I would find a way. I'm not letting this stop me.

Still, this… whatever this is that happened. I don't hate it. But I'm not exactly thankful either. Not for now at least.

I slapped the last winks of sleep away. "Back to the grind, Tom."

I got dressed in the tunic Loki got me and left my bag and other stuff behind, taking only my survival knife with me. Tulley didn't have any laws against carrying knives, hence this pretty little piece of steel I got when we had some surplus left over. If I was gonna kill something, then might as well do it first with the thing I've been meaning to with. Not that I actually ever planned on offing someone. Just the metaphor was good enough.

I hung the knife's holster from the small of my back and put on the leather jacket Gareth gave me. It was some of his older gear, and it looked like a bomber. The dwarf had a good sense of style, and the size of it was just right for my new body. I also put on the boots and greaves he picked out with its matching vambraces. Gareth told me to start with light armor for now and slowly work my way up depending on what was comfortable. I then hung the short sword we picked together by my left hip and the buckler against my back with the leather harness Gareth also told me to keep. And lastly was the helmet, he also made sure to lecture me on keeping one on at all times within the dungeon and complained about the others in the vanguard not wearing one, most especially Aiz and that flimsy headband of hers. Though he did concede on it impeding vision.

Welp, I didn't know jack shit about hunting monsters, so helmet it was. Thankfully though, it was a simple piece, just a metal cap with some metal flaps joined together with leather. My image in the mirror didn't cut a dashing figure like those Final Fantasy heroes, but it did evoke this feeling of adventure. Also, now that I thought about it, I feel like a Monster Hunter… which I technically was right now. Does that mean I could hunt monsters for their body parts?

I went out of my room and made a break for the mess hall, greeting some of the people I got to know last night. Riine, Raul, Rakta, to name a few, they were eating breakfast together, a plate of eggs, bacon, and some greens and bread. Hearty and filling. I joined them for a quick meal and waved at Gareth who came down with Finn and Riveria. It was a happy place and it showed with how easily conversation flowed from one table to another.

"First time to go into the dungeon?" Raul asked with a mouth full of bacon.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," chided Rakta next to him. "Such manners." Her ears drooped. "We should be making a good image as his seniors."

Riine tried placating the bunny girl. "I don't think Thomas minds," she said.

"Yeah, we cool."

The three looked at me all puzzled. "Why would we be cold?" Rakta asked.

Ugh. Right. That's probably why Loki asked before. "Don't mind it," I said. "And yeah, today's my first… umm, adventure?" It sure felt like the right word for it.

Riine smiled. "And with Gareth no less."

"Loki must really have the hots for you," Raul said with a nod.

Speak of the devil herself. Loki grabbed Raul by the shoulders. "And you better make sure nothing bad happens to him."

Raul was half between a victorious smile and a troubled one, and the laughter from the other tables made the scene that much more homey. "So you admit to it then?"

Riine blushed while Rakta's ears perked up at the question, just as all eyes settled on our little group.

Loki simply raised an eyebrow. Then walked over to me and sat on my lap. "He's mine."

I sighed.

#

Loki caused a riot and a half with what she said and it took a good hour or so for the murmurs to die down. Her eating her breakfast while sitting on me didn't help matters calm down either, and it took Gareth a solid effort to pluck me out of the crowding rumormongers. The mess didn't stop there either and it took Finn using this Skill called Command Shout just to get everyone to settle down. It was a disaster. But it was also funny as hell.

"Just please wear any more if you ever get frisky," Gareth said, "and stay away from my garden."

"Wait, no. Gareth. I'm not like that." Jeebus. What the hell?!

"But Loki is."

"Hmm, kinky."

Gareth groaned.

Our group of five exited the Twilight Manor's grounds and joined with the rest of Orario's foot traffic. Orario was the name of the city the Dungeon was located in, a bustling metropolis and melting pot of cultures the world over as well as the only place with a functioning magic stone industry. Also, thanks to Loki making a scene, Gareth and I were now accompanied by Raul's trio as extra insurance. I mean sure, I was pretty valuable to have this communication magic, but _that_ valuable? Really?

"Gareth," I said, he turned to me. "Is communication magic really that valuable?"

Gareth smiled and put a finger to his lips. "You best not say that out loud, Tom." He winked. "And aye, it is."

Raul and Rakta supported his words with some fervent nods. But it was Riine who explained, "Communication is crucial to Dungeon exploration since there's no other way to do it. Here on the surface we can have runners deliver letters, and we can also do that in the dungeon, but the time to get around or through the monsters and travel the floors is more than double the effort."

"I see."

"And communication spells are also instant," Raul added. "So it allows a familia to send out a rescue in time should their group need it."

"Coo—I mean, I understand." Interesting. "So a portion of the familia stays behind during an expedition?"

We passed the same style of streets as yesterday but I didn't recognize them. Either from not remembering or really being new, I wasn't sure. Maybe the latter. People were looking at our little group, but not with the same scrutiny as yesterday, that much I remembered.

"Sometimes a familia can hire another for a rescue as a quest," Riine said. "These kinds of contractual interactions are quite common, and also extends to procurement for those familias specialized in crafts."

"So there are those who explore and those who produce?"

Riine smiled.

There were some respectful looks thrown Raul and Gareth's way, with Rakta getting a major share from the beastkin populace. It was obvious with the way people's eyes reacted when they noticed, and it was a lot easier to see with the people walking by so close to each other. Or maybe because there were barely any carts here? It was a good thing Loki bothered explaining to me everyone's apparent fame last night before we all met, it really saved me the part of my backstory with everyone else having come from some noble family of ancient messengers or something.

"That's right," Riine said. "Our familia is one who explores and usually takes some sorts of quests when we go to some expedition, while familias like the Dian Cecht or Hephaestus familias use the goods we get to make their medicines or weapons and armor."

"And the guild regulates it all?"

"Aye, as much as they can," Gareth said. "But they're not perfect."

I shrugged. "No such thing as a perfect bureaucracy after all."

"Indeed," Gareth said.

"Sadly," Raul added.

"Speaking of bureaucracies," Riine said, "we just arrived."

She pointed at the building adorned with doric columns in pristine white. It was a marvelous building of marble and detailed sculptures of heroic figures and the classic image of the gods. Fitting for the setting of gods having descended to the moral realm. People walked in and out, some in armor like us, some without. There was also the occasional person in a black and white uniform: the guild employees.

"We'll have to register you first to get your pass," Gareth said, then leaned in. "And no worries on your status, they won't ask too many questions of a first timer."

"Hopefully all goes well."

Riine led the way into the guild office and the inside was just as grand as the outside. The floors were well polished, and the place was spotless. People lined up in orderly queues and the few arguments that broke out in the magic stone exchange area and auctions were settled as soon as they started. The guild held a lot of clout as the ones regulating the magic stone industry, and these adventurers all relied on the guild's continued patronage to support their lucrative lifestyles.

Gareth excused himself to secure me a registration form while Rakta and the others browsed some of the posted quests and—I really should've expected it—monster drops for sale. So yeah, Monster Hunter it was.

Riine chatted up some pink haired guild employee, and not too long after Gareth waved for me to come over.

I went to him and next to the dwarf was an elf, though she didn't have the same noble air around her as Riveria. "Hello," I said.

"Good day Thomas," the bespectacled elf said. "Gareth requested I help you with the registration procedure. You may call me Eina." She gave me a well-practiced smile, professional yet sincere. It meant business, but not so stiff as to be robotic. She reminded me of our lawyers back in the firm.

"Nice to meet you then, Eina," I said, "Shall we?"

She led me to a desk and passed me a form, which was too generous. All it really asked for was a name and familia, and the level was already filled in. I guess they just assumed everyone started from zero at level one, which wasn't wrong per se. Thankfully, my Skill also worked with written information. The interview after was also more a formality, with Eina doing most of the talking after I answered some standard consent and waiver oaths. She made sure to remind me of the Dungeon Exploration guidelines and that I should always stick to the more powerful members of my familia. She then finished with a congratulation for finishing the registration and a good luck with raiding the dungeon.

We shook hands and said our goodbyes, and as I turned to leave, a white-haired boy caught my eye waiting in line. Eina checked something off her clipboard and she received him with the same forms she had me fill out. Busy day.

Gareth met me outside the room. "All good?"

I showed him my copy of the filled-out form. "They said I could get my license in three days but this provisional one can already allow me to enter."

"Good," Gareth said, then gave me a firm look. "Ready?"

I huffed. It was bound to happen sooner or later, better now when I could control how it went down. "Let's"

Gareth slapped me in the back. "Come then!"

It didn't take long to get Riine and the rest back on track since they were already waiting by the exit doors. We picked up some lunch to go at a nearby café and went straight for the huge ass tower in the middle of the city: the so called "Tower of Babel." It made me feel strange since I knew of it from my religion's lore, and also because one of my Skills carried its name. Did that mean then the name was some universal concept? The execution was different though. Whatever.

The guards by the tower entrance checked my form out and okayed me entering. Gareth and the others though got some crisp salutes. Cool.

We went together with the flow of people towards the large staircase leading down. The left side was for those coming in, while the right for those coming out. We went leftwards and descended, the sunlight fading as the windows disappeared from view. Eventually, the lights were replaced with the same magic lamps we had in the manor though different in design.

People talked less and less as we went lower. The bricks in the walls gradually becoming more organic in design until they transitioned into jagged streaks of smoothed out facets. The white lights became green glowing crystals, and the air became much cooler. I expected warm stale air but was surprised with the refreshing temperature. Like I was going down this air-conditioned cellar instead of a magical cave that spawned monsters.

Gareth stopped walking and turned back. "You'll want to be ready, Thomas." He nodded at the sword and shield by my sides. "Monsters will start showing up soon."

The other people we went down with avoided us as they passed, some of them already with their blades and staves and weapons out. Raul and Rakta both took out short swords while Riine readied a small scepter. I guess she used magic then. I wiped my sweaty palms against my pants first before doing the same, taking comfort in the weight in my hands. I held the sword in my right and the shield in my left. It was a well-balanced feel Gareth mentioned was the most important to wielding a blade. I didn't have any experience with handling a weapon so large, but that was also why I got one as close to my survival knife in shape so I had some idea at least.

Besides, stabbing something shouldn't be too hard, right?

We went down the stairs some more, and the steps turned into a gentle slope. I only noticed we were finally in the dungeon proper when some cold wind sent a chill down my back. It reminded me of that first splash of cold air on opening a window in winter, but this one felt like I passed through a film.

"You felt it then?" Gareth asked.

"Felt what?" Riine asked.

"The Dungeon," I said.

"Aye."

I nodded, but Riine just tilted her head. Raul and Rakta also shrugged, then took our flanks.

"You can rest easy Thomas," Gareth said. "The first floor only spawns goblins, and our familia frequents the fiftieth floor down, you'd have to make an honest effort to die under my watch. And Raul there has a number of potions should you need them. Just get used to the feeling for now."

Loki was really pulling out the stops here.

I looked at Raul. "Don't worry," he said, "this is a vacation compared to what I normally have to deal with." His face went through a series of phases before coming back to the present. Some of those didn't look too pleasant.

"You'll be just fine," Riine said.

"Right. Adventure time then!" I psyched myself up and took my first step forward.

It took a minute before I spotted my first ever goblin. Gareth and the others stayed a few steps behind to give me some space. I stepped forward and the goblin turned to face me. It was a small thing, reaching up to only my hip. I was five feet and six inches so this thing couldn't have been taller than a toddler. That was a horrible mental image.

It snarled at me with brown teeth and red eyes, then charged, just about as fast as a toddler would've.

I met its charge with one of my own and bashed it back with my shield. The goblin flinched and fell on its ass and I followed up with a slash for its neck and missed. So, I bashed it again with the shield. It twitched. I stomped on its head and felt the thing give way like a crunchy melon. Blood wet my boots.

It was my first kill. And I felt nothing.

That was… underwhelming.

"That was brutal," Raul said. "It never occurred to me to do that before." He nodded. "Effective though."

Gareth came closer. "How do you feel?"

I sheathed my sword. "Nothing special." I sighed. "Is that common?" I feel like I just killed an animal and was okay with it.

"Each dwarf has his swing," Gareth said. "Don't mind it. How was the sword?"

I grimaced. "I missed, and it felt clunky to use. The shield was easier."

"True," Gareth said, "but if you attack with a shield they you can't defend with it."

I raised a brow at him. Guard Points in Monster Hunter would say otherwise! But… that's in a video game. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

Gareth knelt down by the goblin's corpse. "And lad," he said, gesturing me to kneel as well. I did so. "Don't forget to remove the magic crystal inside its body."

"Ah, right. That." Money. Gotcha. I took out my knife. "Where do I cut?"

Gareth looked at my weapon funny. "That's a curious blade there, well made too."

"Ah, yeah, she's beautiful." It was a matte black tanto survival knife. I passed it to him handle first, and Gareth held it with respect.

"It's a good light blade," he said. "You're used to shorter weapons?"

"I'm more confident fighting other people," I said. Self-defense lessons don't usually teach you to attack child-sized opponents.

"Aye." He passed me back my knife the same way I did. "Would you prefer your knife and shield then?"

Rakta tilted her head at me while Raul just shrugged, Riine was too busy serving as a lookout.

"Sure," I said. I then stabbed my knife into the goblin's rib cage and cut up towards its neck, the flesh easily giving way to reveal a small thumbnail sized gleaming gem. I took it with my bear hands, then the entire thing, blood and carcass all dissolved into dust. Neither stain nor nail left behind of the monster. "Well that's convenient."

Gareth chuckled. "Not squeamish either, this is good Thomas. And if you stab a monster through its core you can call them instantly."

I nodded. "But then I'd end up destroying the stone."

"Indeed."

"And that would lower the value of it?"

"Aye." Gareth smiled. "You pick up well."

"Thanks," I said.

"Come on then," Gareth said, standing up. "One goblin won't even come close to serving as an Achievement."

I stood too, and took off the short sword by my waist, passing it to him. Wait. Gareth _didn't_ bring any weapons at all. Was he a bare fist fighter then? I kinda pictured him with an axe though. Oh well, fantastic racism wouldn't do me any good here. Probably. "I'll try my knife for a bit."

"Aye," Gareth said, "and I'll borrow this here sword for a while."

Our group moved forward and met three goblins by a fork. The four of them stayed back to give me space. I stepped up and met the challenge. Three targets meant three sources of damage to take down. I could probably incapacitate one with a charge or maybe even stagger them all. Risky though if they're able to stop me. Then again, it's not like they have any blades on them to stab me with, and the earlier goblin's teeth were jagged but not sharp enough to slice flesh, tear maybe, but not chomp clean off.

"Let's do this," I said, and charged forward with my shield at the ready.

The three goblins turned as one and ran for me as they stood, not caring to prevent getting in each other's way.

I then changed the orientation of my shield to hit the first one square across its chest with the edge and continued to plow through the other two, then grabbed the last one's head from behind and slit its throat, though I cut too deep and nearly beheaded it instead. One less to worry about at least.

The first one I hit wasn't getting up, but the middle goblin was already charging for me again. Curious, I stood my ground and tanked its tackle. It couldn't even push me. I sheathed my knife and grabbed its scrambling hand, then pushed it into the wall with my shield and pulled hard against its limb. The little green arm gave out without much resistance, and I pushed the goblin further against the wall until its resistance gave away.

Blood trailed from the dungeon's walls and only then did I let go.

I wasn't winded at all. And all that exertion was for nothing. I then slit the thing's throat to be sure before coming back to the first goblin I downed and also slit its throat. Was I strong or were these things just that weak? Perhaps my Status was just that good?

The four came over.

"Is this going to be a regular thing?" Rakta said with distaste. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"I'm not sure if I'm doing well," I said, and quickly carved out the stones from the three to dispel the bloodshed.

"You are," Raul said.

I looked at Gareth. "Aye, let's keep going."

"I think I'll stick to my shield and knife, it feels most natural like this."

Gareth nodded.

We met a group of two goblins, the four stayed back. I body slammed the two creatures, then quickly set myself up to restrain one with my knee on its belly and the other I sliced through its throat. The one beneath I then crushed to death. Monster blood disappearing after I take out their stones was really convenient. They also don't leave behind any weird smells.

The next groups of goblins I tried whatever I could, some I strangled, some I stomped, some I stabbed, some I twisted into unnatural angles. It was cruel to say the least, but I needed to learn my limits. The next one I then lifted and used like a club to beat its fellow goblins with. And after I collected their stones Gareth asked me if I wanted to continue to the second floor.

I had no reason to refuse so we went. Rakta though looked much better than when we first started, though I guess her ears covering her eyes whenever I went to fight might've helped. I didn't know she could use them like that. Raul though was just really curious as to what else I would try, even giving his own suggestions. Death by quartering was his suggestion, and that killed the goblin after an arm and a leg.

The second floor's crystal lights were of a lighter blue with the walls taking on hexagonal patterns. Kobolds also started spawning here.

I met a group of three Kobolds for my first fight. The kobolds charged together, taking their positions into account so they didn't get in each other's way. That was quite a jump from the goblins. I stood my ground and slapped the first kobold to reach me with my shield, flinging it into the left wall. I jumped back to open some space then blocked the next one's sight with my shield before stabbing it in the gut with a backhand grip, and disemboweling it with a rend. Stabbing the kobold felt a lot like stabbing a cushion, their insides didn't resist much, the same went for the goblins.

As the second kobold bled out, the last kobold stopped in its tracks.

I stopped too.

The one by the wall lunged for me and I let it take a face full of shield, slamming its body against the wall again and pinning it in place with all my weight. Kobolds were only slightly larger than goblins after all. It kept struggling against the pressure but eventually stopped once blood pooled by my feet.

The last kobold turned tail but I gave chase and tackled it to the floor, stabbing it in the back multiple times until it stopped.

I collected the stones after and was freed from the bloodbath.

"Kobolds give you trouble?" Gareth asked.

"They were coordinating to some extent, more resilient too."

"As long as you're careful," Gareth added.

I went back to hunting, trying the same methods with the kobolds as I did with the goblins, and surprising was how well the kobolds responded to have their snouts punched. They were ferocious until they got hit there, after which they'd turn into quivering wrecks too panicky to even fight back. Seeing how the monsters weren't spawning while I was fighting, or perhaps Gareth and company were taking care of it, I mounted the last kobold in the group and just punched away at its face until it died. It took ten hits to its head until it stopped struggling.

"It's gotten easier," I said. "Is that how Statuses work?"

"Perhaps," Gareth said, stroking his beard. "The third floor then?"

"If it's alright, then yes please."

Before we went down we had lunch first and a quick rest, but I still wasn't even the least bit tired. This was magic. And it felt… disorienting, like my body wasn't my own. It moved however I wanted it though, so that was pretty amazing.

 _Thomas, how are you doing?_

Hey Loki, I'm doing alright, we're headed down to the third floor. Goblins and kobolds were too easy and I couldn't get a proper feel of my body.

 _Really? Interesting. Just don't push yourself too hard, alright?_

I'm trying actually, better to find out during a controlled experiment than during a live operation.

"Thomas?" Riine asked.

"Sorry," I said, "was just talking to Loki. I'll be sure to let you guys know in the future the next time I do."

 _Just don't get yourself killed, okay? Loki out._

See you soon, Loki. "I'm done talking with her now, she was just checking up on us."

The third floor had Dungeon Lizards that were just larger than normal monitor lizards. They didn't do much besides charge and use their tail like a whip, and the few times they take a bite they're easily countered with a shield bash. And once they're dazed, its not too hard to stab them through the head. We had a small pouch of magic crystals from all the killing, and in an effort to tire me out, Gareth had Riine start collecting the stones for us while I was told to simply focus on killing.

With the bash and stab combo though, the lizards fell like flies.

Deeper into the third floor, combinations of goblins, kobolds, and lizards started appearing. And the best way to deal with them was to use a goblin as a makeshift weapon or to punch the snouts of the kobolds if there were no goblins, then take care of the lizards first since they were less predictable with their tails. The fights including goblins were the easiest since I got a good club for free and I could just smash everyone's faces in with the corpse.

When we reached the fourth floor's entrance, only then did I start getting tired.

And still we pushed through, the monsters were the same as the end of the third floor, coming up with combinations of the first three monsters but with up to six members max compared to the four before. Half-way through the floor, was when I finally pooped out, but a quick rest let me keep going for another four encounters until I first thought to call it quits. Another quick rest and the sight of the small but filled pouch gave me renewed strength and I lasted for another five encounters before I really called it done for the day. I stopped counting the monsters I'd killed once Gareth had Riine collect the stones.

Raul and Rakta faithfully stood guard to make sure no new monsters ambushed me, but granted I fought everything we encountered today, I'd say it wasn't too bad of a first day. When went back up to the surface with Raul needing to support my sorry ass. I guess the fatigue just caught up only now. It was a good kind of tired though, just really bloody.

We stopped by the guild to exchange the crystals and got a whopping twelve thousand and six hundred Valis for all I did. Raul whistled at the figure, and from that I guess I didn't do too badly.

After that we went back to the manor for a quick shower and met up with everyone at this restaurant called the Hostess of Fertility, it was Loki's favorite place and the familia's usual hangout after an expedition. Today was to celebrate them coming back from their last trip three days ago as well as my joining. Everything went swimmingly until Loki started getting people drunk, the worst of which was Bete who made a big fuss of coming onto Aiz. That and yapping about their fuck up of letting those minotaurs escape them from the seventeenth floor and almost killing that white-haired kid.

Someone ran from the restaurant then, which made a waitress chase after the dine and dasher, but Aiz also noticed something. With the mood partly ruined, Bete was forcefully restrained and turned into a piñata for everyone's peace of mind, and the night ended on a strange note.

We all went home buzzed, making merry till we entered the manor as the day closed with a satisfying silence.


	3. Vol 1 Chapter 2

**Volume 1**

 **Chapter 2**

The following day, I didn't feel as stiff as I expected to be.

I got into the shower fed with a magic powered pump and kept it cool, just right to jolt the senses with. There was a heater, but it wasn't my thing. I finished before the sun came up and stood by the window. Dawn was the time I liked best, and a different world didn't—couldn't change that. It was the same old routine in a whole new world, and the familiarity was a relief above all else. Waking up was easier too since I wasn't too used to the bed yet, though the sleep was better. Blame it on the open-air or the down mattress, either way, it was divine.

Sunlight peeked from the mountains in the distance, casting brilliant rays like a halo to welcome the morning. Orario glowed a gentle pastel as the light crept in. Smoke wafted and twirled from distant chimneys, starting the toil of the busy work ahead. The manor's courtyard slowly filled with the familia's early risers, first in pairs, then in trios or so. Aiz was already swinging her sword near the fountain.

It was a normal day for these people, and the new normal for me too.

I opened my phone to play Oingo Boingo's Dead Man's Party. It just felt so appropriate for the beginning I now faced. My bag sat on top of my dresser, the sunlight dancing on its dull red nylon weave. It was one of my few reminders of home, an eclectic collection of stuff from work and my personal life. Some of them were useless here like my work laptop, but my phone and the hand crank charger I never had a use for was a breath of fresh air in this internet-less world. It was a good thing I had enough music in it to last me three days without repeating too, and getting that eighties playlist after Ready Player One was one of my best decisions yet.

I sat back on the bed just taking it all in. Sure, I was alone in the sense no one truly knew me here, but at least I had the view. And Loki, well, Loki was another something I wasn't too sure of. I was thankful for what she had done for me so far, and what she continues to do, I just don't know if what I could offer was enough.

I put on the same tunic and pants, then Gareth's leather jacket, greaves, and vambraces. I picked up my loaned shield and secured my knife against my back. My set-up was working for now, but Gareth told me I'd need to scale up once we started going lower. I was doing well against smaller than human targets, but since my mentor and the rest of the executives regularly faced titanic beasts in the lower floors, I'd need something that hits bigger and deeper eventually. Loki also gave me a month or so to level up so I could join them, and the chance to finish off some way higher level than me mob—I mean monsters would probably grant me a butt-ton of experience. I bet those gods didn't bother to remove that from the code—I mean rules.

Gareth told me before the feast last night we'd take my knife to get some maintenance first thing in the morning.

I went out my room, taking a small rucksack with me for some Dungeon supplies and locked the door behind me. The trek down the stairs was like going down the hotel for the complementary buffet style continental breakfast, which it sorta was. The cooks whipped up some scrumptious dishes all displayed and free to choose from and I picked up a mushroom omelet, some fried beef sausages, a couple sourdough bagels, and the usual steamed veggies. I sat next to a different group this time since I'd be risking my life together with them soon enough, best build trust with as many people as possible. It was Robert's most important rule when training his teams: to make sure they all knew each other as people, better as friends if he could help it. The better for them to save each other's butts, Robert always said.

It was appropriate to do the same. If only so I didn't get in their way.

"How was your first dungeon run, Thomas?" asked Anakity, a cat person lady with long black hair and a chill demeanor.

Rakta joined us shortly. "Brutal," she said. Rakta set her tray of food down, mostly veggies and a couple of eggs. On the other hand, Anakity was having a hearty share of all the fried stuffs and some cheeses.

"It wasn't that bad," I said.

 _Yes it was, Thomas._

Zip it.

Rakta's ears stood up, her eyes squinting just the tiniest bit. "And Thomas keeps flirting with Loki every minute. I swear, the two should just share a room." The bunny lady smiled a toothless grin.

Anakity was only too happy to join in on the teasing, and lightly elbowed my side. "Can't get enough of her, eh?"

 _I know I'm irresistible._

"Mind you," I said, "I'm keeping it on so I keep using up my magic stat. Loki said doing things relevant to the status led to better growth, hence, the grind."

 _And the brutal ways you pulled those monsters apart. For Strength?_

And Endurance! I'll abuse this experience system for as long as I can.

But all they heard was, "You and her grind against each other?" Rakta said in a scandalized tone.

Anakity added fuel to the spark started by the sinister rabbit by squealing. "Such a daring man!" She feigned swooning, and the tables near us including Raul and Riine joined in on laughing at my expense. Though, I didn't really mind. And sadly, Loki and I hadn't gone so far as doing any flirting besides the banter when we first met—which was just yesterday. But no one needed to know that.

"A gentleman wouldn't kiss and tell," I said, waiving my still untouched bagel. "I just wish I could sleep better." I faked a yawn.

Anakity and Rakta paused. "For real?" Rakta asked, ears on attention.

I took a bite and just raised an eyebrow at her. Let them stew on that for a while.

 _You do know all your monologues come unfiltered to me, right?_

Let me have my moment.

"Thomas," Loki said from the stairs, "you snore too loud." She was rubbing her hips as if saying they were sore.

Rakta and Anakity went all red to their ears. Loki then joined our table dragging Aiz with her who was eating all pastries for breakfast. Loki at least had a balanced plate of scrambled eggs, toasted bread, some greens, and coffee.

"That's a lot of sugar," I said, pointing at the sugar bonanza.

"Energy," Aiz said, flexing her arm.

Loki gave her a pat on the head and the blonde looked like a skittish cat trying to weasel out of some skinship. "So precious," the goddess said.

The bunny and the cat lady were still shocked, just mindlessly shoving food into their mouths. Another familia member, Cruz, a human and Anakity's friend joined us too, and like her, had a mountain of meat.

"Hey Thomas, mind if I join?" Cruz asked.

"I'd be insulted if you didn't," I said with a smile.

Cruz looked a little confused but sat next to Anakity anyway, he poked her cheek and brought her back down to not Earth. "She does that often," he said.

"The teasing?"

"Yeah," he said, smiling wryly.

Aiz was busy nibbling on some sort of roll and Loki just watched her do so. Rakta also snapped out of it when Raul asked her if they were going down for some money. The bunny's ears went back to life at the mention of cash.

Raul clapped his hands in front of him. "Sorry Thomas, we won't be able to go with you today."

I waved a hand, and said, "It's alright Raul, we coo— I mean, no problem."

Raul looked troubled and apologized some more.

Loki leaned next to me. "Just saying it's alright is enough, cool and no problem don't work here."

Ugh. Culture differences. "I meant it was alright, no problem is just a saying back home."

"If you say so," Raul said, unsure.

Loki rubbed my back while saying there there. She then explained how money earned during those familia expeditions all went towards funding the next one while members had to spend for their own gear. Supplies were handled by the budget, but repairs, maintenance, and extra training were all up to the individual. It was a simple formula for managing finances and ensuring everyone kept up with the proper preparations, as well as made sure they were immersed in the gravity of what they were doing.

Loki pulled me close. "Which reminds me, we should update your status."

Rakta's and Anakity's ears both stood up and the two's necks snapped at me and Loki. I swear I heard something cracked.

Loki grinned.

They didn't stand a chance.

Loki made me carry her back to her room bridal style. She didn't pull any stops with teasing her familia and the more they were focused on this whirlwind romance, the more they wouldn't notice any inconsistencies I might let slip with my supposed noble and from far away backstory. It was also fun to entertain them so it was a plus-plus. And really, who could say no to a bunny girl blushing?

Loki poked my cheek. "Rakta? Really?"

"Bunnies are best."

"I'm still more of an elf-person. Come on then," she said. She sat on her bed. "I'll give you a special service."

I swallowed. Did she hear that.

"I did."

"At least we don't share bodily sensations."

"A shame." She winked. "You know the drill."

I chuckled and took off my tunic, then pulled on the stool from the dresser.

"Leave the chair," she said, coy.

"Umm, am I allowed to be turned on right now?"

"Are you?"

"Yes."

"Good." Loki pat the side next to her bed. "Lay on your belly here."

I wiped away a sheen of sweat that wasn't there. Good thing I didn't drink any coffee, else my heart would be so much louder than it already was in my ears. I did as told, feeling the silky smooth and cool sheets. They smelled like cinnamon. "Here?"

"Perfect," Loki said by my ear.

I felt her weight press down my butt, soft and damning while her knees pressed against my sides for balance. I was made so very aware of how we sank into her bed, one part harder pressed elsewhere. Loki fidgeted on top of me as her hand found support on my shoulder, her fingertips digging in. "Umm, wow?" I said.

"Yes, wow."

"You're enjoying this."

"You're not wrong."

She removed her hand from my back, a moment later her finger touched the same spot before as the room glowed a bright blue. Heat, heavy and calm, large and imposing yet gentle and graceful. The sensations danced on and within.

Loki tsked. "So, it really did come to that."

"Is it bad?"

"I'm not sure, but I hope not."

It took a few more minutes before she pressed a sheet of paper onto my back, the rustling and her earlier words killing the mood. She got off and showed me the sheet.

#

 **Level 1**

Strength = I 0 - I 7

Endurance = I 0 - I 9

Dexterity = I 0 - I 15

Agility = I 0 - I 5

Magic = I 0 - I 37

Madness Spectrum = I

Tranquil Intervention = I

World Walker = I

Fated Actor = I

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Madness"

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

#

"Magic? And what's up with that edgy name?" Was I being so melodramatic that it showed up? "And what's up with this dark as hell description?"

Loki shook her head. "It's because of you crossing over, but the effects are unexpected." She bit her thumbnail. "What I'd give to access the Arcana right now, but… it's not necessarily bad." She crossed her arms. "We should get Riveria to take a look. She's the best mage we have at hand. If it's her, she might have some idea of what we're looking at here."

I sighed. "Crazy thing." I pointed at where the paper listed the effects and the chant. "You knew of this?"

"No," Loki said with a serious expression. "When gods open a child's Falna they only open it to and for the Arcana to fill in, and had I done this from Heaven then I would've known what exactly it is but…"

It went without saying. "Right, is it safe to use though?" It was a one-word chant, I didn't know if it was strong or weak, and only experimentation would yield any information.

"A Falna would never yield something harmful," she said. "At least, for the children here. Your circumstances might be a bit stranger, given how you arrived."

"Fair enough."

I got dressed and Loki called for Riveria, who came in a while later with Lefiya, another elf and the one I saw before in the pink dress. She set the tome down and I showed them my back so former could read the hieroglyphs herself. The executives already knew the secrets of my status anyway, letting the next lead mage in line know was not too much of a bother either.

"It reminds me of Aiz's own magic," Riveria said. "And to obtain it without levelling up too."

Lefiya was hard at work scanning the tome for the things Riveria asked her to. "Umm," she said, "I couldn't find anything about inflicting madness, but fear and confusion are mental debuffs." She closed the book. "Sorry I couldn't find more, I'll try the other tomes if they mention anything."

Loki waved a hand. "It's alright, Lefiya," she said, "I doubt we'll find anything useful anyway." Loki tilted her head. "What about any legends on world crossers? Or anything concerning fate?"

Lefiya nodded and went back to her searching.

"From what I know," Riveria said, "those aren't mentioned in our legends either. Elves have longer lives so our stories focus more on journeys and achievements rather than destinies. And this mention of fate implies Thomas is meant to be part of some event or other occurrence."

Loki tsked. "That's what I thought too, but the Falna didn't reveal anything else."

"Sucks to be human, no?"

Loki shrugged. "It does," she said, "and I believe you meant mortal?"

"Ah, right. Other races, gotcha."

Riveria raised a thin and elegant eyebrow. "I see now what Tiona keeps telling everyone."

Loki pouted and pulled me close. "He's mine."

Riveria raised her hands in no contest. "We know. You've been telling us all ever since he got here."

I looked at Loki. And smiled. "Aww, that's so sweet of you."

"He's _exactly_ like you," Riveria said.

"Why does she make it sound like it's a bad thing?"

"All elves have sticks up their butts."

"Hey!" Lefiya said from behind her book.

Loki blew raspberries at her.

"Real mature," I said.

Riveria laughed like a tinkling bell. "But I do see you enjoying yourselves," she said, looking at us from the sides of her eyes. "Should we leave you to some private time now?"

"We'll save it for tonight," Loki said.

Lefiya went red.

"We are?"

"Hush you," Loki said. "And Riveria, can you come with him and Gareth later? I want you to see what his magic does yourself."

"Understood, Loki," Riveria said with a small smile. "I'll keep an eye on your man."

The two then excused themselves with Lefiya promising to come back with something later on. Loki told her to only check it out in her free time since time was something we had a lot of right now. Yes, I wanted to get back home as soon as I could, but rushing something this big was bound to make more problems than solutions. In the end, Lefiya agreed to not get too obsessed with this, but the fire in her eyes said she'd get right on it anyway.

"She's found a hobby, don't that away from her," Loki said.

"But, wouldn't that be, I don't know, unhealthy?"

"Eh, she needs it. Girl needs more confidence anyway."

"She won't find them in books though."

"True, but if she feels she's achieved something, it still counts."

"Fair point."

"And Thomas," her tone was serious. "Don't be too noisy with your status."

"Jealous, my dear?"

She pinched my side. "If I catch you cheating," she said with narrowed eyes and a wide smile. "Kidding."

"Yeah, I understand."

"The other gods might help you, but don't ever trust Freya. She's got all the male gods twined around her finger. And she's… too wild of a wild card to anticipate. You're a good friend Thomas, and getting home is something I hope you get to do. Just remember you're still dealing with gods who usually get what they want."

"I'm no different," she continued. " _Was_ no different, is what I want to say. Still, stay safe. Please?"

I nodded and said, "I will."

She kicked me out of her room right after.

#

Gareth picked me up carrying the short sword I gave back to him yesterday together with Riveria, Finn, Alicia, and Tione. Tione was the amazoness twin in the red bikini which I had to keep reminding myself of, darn their similar names, and Alicia was another elf with chestnut brown hair. Also, almost all of Loki's female members all had such large chests, Riveria included, save for Tiona—Tione's sister in the yellow bandeau. A comrade perhaps?

 _Zip it you!_

We were all walking to where Gareth's friend stayed. And I couldn't help but ask. "Tione, isn't it dangerous to not have armor in the dungeon?"

Gareth and Finn nodded, the former even offering to go with her to pick some passable pieces like what Aiz had as a minimum. Riveria and Alicia though didn't care for the question, only looking at me with disapproving looks.

Tione tilted her head. "It gets in the way," she said, then looked at Finn. "And the captain doesn't wear any either."

Gareth glared at the hobbit, who quickly recovered with a, "But my clothes are blessed items made with Cadmus hide." He cut a dashing figure in the purple and yellow frock. "It _is_ armor."

"That's a monster drop, right?"

Finn nodded.

Tione crossed her arms. "I don't know. It feels weird to wear non-amazon clothes since they remind me of home."

"Ah, I get that." All too well.

The two elves nodded, and I noticed they weren't wearing any armor either, but I guess their robes were blessed like Finn's?

"And it also reminds me of the sea," Tione added, looking Eastward into the distance.

"That explains the clothes and skin tone," I said.

"Armor isn't the most important, Thomas," Riveria said, and the two girls seemed to agree wholeheartedly. "Comfort is the real point of what you wear into the dungeon."

Finn also joined in agreement, but Gareth was definitely of another opinion. He leaned to me and whispered, "This lot will all kill me with worry."

We laughed at that but Gareth wasn't amused, he didn't press the issue though and it at least got a small promise from Tione to check out some defensive charms at the very least which the old man acquiesced to. Riveria and Finn though he didn't bother reminding, out of trust perhaps? Or was it that armor impeded magic?

We crossed a small crossroad and walked towards another street I'd never been to and eventually came to a small village like area of little white huts all with chimneys and the constant ringing of metal against metal. The entrance had an arch displaying two hammers crossed over a volcano, which made me think Vulcan. Or was this Hephaestus? There was a small building carrying the same symbol in front which had a glass window displaying all sorts and shapes of weaponry with some scary long price tags.

"Vulcan's smiths?"

"Vulcan?" Gareth said. The others also gave me puzzled looks.

"I meant Hephaestus."

"You say it weird," Tione said. "Here we say Hephaistos."

"Tomato, tomato."

Tione sneered. "It's like Loki's right here with us."

Finn dragged her away and Riveria and Alicia tagged along with them to check out the store while Gareth pushed me into the village. "I'll take you to my friend," he said with a smile.

Two lefts and a right in, we arrived at another generic hut, this one marked with the number seven. He knocked on the door. Something exploded. Smoke spewed out the windows in billowing puffs and out came a lady in what looked like a red hakama with her upper body wrapped in bandages and carrying a large forging hammer. There was a large forge—unsurprisingly—inside her hut and the beginnings of a fire.

"Gareth!" she said, and hugged the dwarf.

"Been a while Tsubaki," Gareth said, hugging her back.

"Is that alright?" I asked, pointing at the fire lapping at her spare coals.

"He's new," Gareth said. "His name's Thomas."

"Ah," the lady said. And like magic—wait no, and magically, the fires died down. "Better?"

"Thank you."

"He's polite," Tsubaki said with approval.

"Don't be fooled," Gareth said with a grimace.

"I'm right here."

A pause.

"Tsubaki," Gareth said, completely glossing over that aside. "We need some help with a blade, just need to check how it fared against his first raid."

"A new child?" Tsubaki said with wonder. "Can I also have a contract with him?" Her eyes shone with a shrewd light.

"He's already using my equipment," Gareth said, "I don't see why not."

"Wait, did you just decide for me?"

Tsubaki slung an arm over my shoulders. "Shh, don't mind the details." She smelled of fresh steel and fly ash with a hint of sweat. And my god they were _huge_. Tsubaki gave me a pat on the shoulder.

"Well," I said, "Gareth hasn't given me any problems yet, so I guess it'll be fine?" Though we've only known each other for like all of three days. Was that too fast to trust someone with? Definitely. Did I have a better alternative? No. Trust it was.

"Aye," Gareth said, pleased with himself. "And Tsubaki here wouldn't have offered otherwise."

The lady gave a proud nod. "Now, you were talking about a weapon?" Her eyes shone, this time different from the earlier filled with the spirit of capitalism.

I took off my knife together with its holster and handed it to her.

When she got hold of it, the surprise was unmistakable. Her brows came together as she unsheathed it, and downright confused when she gave it a swing and ran a finger against the flat of the blade. "What in the name of Hephaistos is this?"

"Aye," Gareth said, "surprised me too when I first held it."

Tsubaki brought the blade near her nose and sniffed, flicked at the flat with a finger, tried bending the blade by its side—her eyes went wide. "It's… steel?" she said. "And there's an extra coating of some other material I don't know about." She bit the handle. "And what the hell is this handle?" She scratched it. "Some sort of resin?"

Holy shit, she really knew her stuff.

 _Who knows her stuff?_

This Tsubaki blacksmith lady, Gareth's friend.

 _Lucky you._

Really?

 _She's one of the few level five blacksmiths. Yeah, lucky._

Damn.

"Don't worry," Gareth said, "that's just him flirting with Loki."

The look of horror on Tsubaki was like an image of hell. She quickly snapped out of it. "Do you want to exchange this?" she said. "The materials on it are interesting but it was the technique that went into it I want. This finish that prevents reflection is superb! And the flexibility and toughness! What sort of godly smith made this cheap but reliable tool?"

"A group called Cold Steel."

She grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me close, putting us eye to eye—since she had an eyepatch on. "I. Must. Know."

Was everyone with such a high level so damn strange?!

 _Huh, now that I think about it… yeah._

You're not helping.

"I don't mind selling it," I said. Her fingers dug into my skin. This was pretty hot.

 _I approve._

You heard that?

 _You talk a lot in your head._

Why do you think I have such a high magic stat?

 _Fair._

"Give me." Tsubaki's eyes were crazed. Gareth was just standing there trying to look like he had no hand in this.

"What are you willing to pay me for it though?"

"My body."

"Please don't."

"Huh, I thought you'd say yes." Genuine surprise. Goddammit.

 _I dammit what?_

No.

 _Well you're the one keeping the connection on at all times._

Eh, you're having fun listening in anyway.

 _Don't take my commentary away from me._

Fine.

"Let's not be too hasty," Gareth said and pursed his lips. "And please ask Loki first if you're making that sort of offer." Why the hell does he look like he just got roped into this? This was his idea in the first place!

"I wasn't serious anyway," Tsubaki said.

"Thank you." I massaged a throbbing temple. "Right, so, what can I get in exchange?"

Tsubaki rubbed her chin. "The materials for this don't go beyond something like three thousand Varis, but the techniques would easily place it at a solid fifty thousand if I were selling it."

Gareth nodded. "That's a fair price."

"But," Tsubaki said, "learning those techniques, I can easily value this at, hmm, five hundred—"

"Million?" I asked with a wide smile.

Tsubaki looked at me like a roadside bug. "Thousand. Are you crazy? This is a technique for making cheap and reliable goods, not a labor fee for processing volatile magical goods no one else but just a handful of people could do."

"You're not wrong." Damn that impeccable reasoning.

"And since Gareth was such a dear for introducing you to me, I can bump up that price to eight hundred."

"I don't know," I said, "maybe I can sell it to you later once I get deep enough? It also has sentimental value to me so I don't want to let go of it yet." It was still a souvenir from home after all.

"I'll buy it for eight hundred even if you took it to me broken," she said. "And I can't reforge this without it losing its properties anyway, I'll just be using it as a template and do my own research."

"Ah, so I can just lend it to you?"

"Sure," she said, "but I'd have to bump down the price."

"That's alright, but I want a piece of the royalties once you start teaching others."

Gareth smirked. Tsubaki broke out into a loud laugh. "I like you, Thomas."

"Please don't mean that in any other way than a purely platonic one."

"Why wouldn't I?" she asked.

"Don't mind it," Gareth said.

Tsubaki sharpened the blade extra fine and passed it back, the money we agreed to exchange later on in a few days to give her time to prepare her workshop. She was hoping to spend some quality time with the knife and I didn't really ask her to elaborate on it anymore, Gareth was also adamant on keeping the meeting short. He kept mouthing to cut it short. Tsubaki would also draft that contract for me later on, and she was already betting on getting me after expressing lament at not getting Aiz before. She said she won't be missing that chance again, especially with how interesting I was.

#

We met up with the rest of the guys, with Finn and Tione having already picked up lunch for everyone and went straight for the Dungeon. Gareth had a few words of caution for Alicia before he set me loose on the monsters though. It was only slightly offending which was better than the verbal lashing I got from Rakta after I started poking monsters' eyes out. She didn't have to watch if it made her queasy, but even doing just that was an enlightening experience according to the dwarf, though Riveria was doubtful of the praise Raul gave.

The goal for today was to test the new magic I got as well as to still see how far I could go. Yesterday was a massacre for everything I met, and it didn't do me any good to fight without meeting a challenge. So, we breezed through the first to fourth floors with me still killing everything we met but not going for a sweep.

Down the fifth floor's stairs the dungeon took on a green tone, and I faced a new monster called the Frog Shooter.

"It's a huge frog."

"Aye," Gareth said.

"It's an amphibian."

"What's that?" Finn said.

"It's supposed to need water to survive."

"It's magic," Finn said with a smile.

"But Loki said magic doesn't solve everything."

 _Eh, it's not a law._

"It does for the frog shooter," Finn said.

"Just go kill it already," Tione said.

"So lively," Alicia said with a sigh.

"She doesn't talk much?" That's the first thing she ever said today.

" _You_ talk too much," Tione said with arms crossed.

"She's not wrong," Gareth added.

I unsheathed my knife holding it in my left. Yesterday, I held it with my right since I was more confident I could control it, but it seems the shield was more useful. And if I'm just stabbing something anyway, my left hand was good enough for that. The frog just stared at me. Good thing there was only one of it for the first encounter. Convenient and lucky, but my luck won't always be this good. I should probably get started on the short sword already.

"Get it over with dammit!" Tione said.

Ugh. I charge the frog and it retaliated with a tongue shot—heh—out in a flash. I blocked the lash with my shield and found myself pulled over. Scorpion?! It opened its mouth wide as if to bite, revealing rows of sharpened teeth. Wait. That wasn't right.

"Frogs don't have teeth!" I stabbed the thing's snout just as its jaws clamped down, avoiding whatever fate it had in store for me. How the hell did it avoid biting its own tongue anyway?! Ah, so the gaps between the teeth were enough for the tongue. "This is bullshit!"

"Stop thinking and just kill!" Tione shouted in support.

I bashed the thing's head, but its skin was too slippery to make any respectable contact. "How is it damp in this dry environment?!"

"Why are you whining so much?!"

"Carry on Thomas," Finn said.

The frog jerked and threw me off, but its slippery skin just made it slap against my side. It shot its tongue out again but the move was manageable as long as I knew where its eyes were looking. I charged it from the side and it slowly turned—it could've just hopped dammit! I tackled the creature and hugged it close, freeing my hand to stab it in the gut multiple times until it stopped squirming.

"That was a mess," Tione said.

"You're not too fond of frogs?" Gareth asked.

"It was unique," Finn offered.

"That was just wrong," Riveria said.

"I agree," Alicia concurred.

I cut out the stone and was relieved of the frog's blood—but not its slime. "Please tell me the slime is not the drop loot."

"The slime is indeed the drop loot." Finn pointed at the puddle by my feet. "It's used in potions as a preservative."

Fuck.

 _You hugged the frog shooter._

Yes.

 _That's hardcore._

It was necessary.

Alicia flinched when I rejoined the group, and said, "Is this gonna be a thing?"

"It already is," Gareth said.

"Can we just go straight to the sixth floor already?"

We moved on for the stairs and a minute into things we ran into a group of three frogs and two kobolds. They moved back, I stepped up.

"Wait, wasn't he a level one?" Alicia asked.

"You're still asking that this deep into things?" Finn said.

"Carry on then," Alicia said.

"Can't we skip them?"

"Less talking more fighting," Tione said.

I charged towards the group of five, and three tongues shot for my sorry ass. I veered to the left. A kobold lunged for me with its claws. I stepped into its guard and shoved my shield into its face, throwing it off its feet and went straight for the closest frog. The leftmost frog brought its tongue back and hopped forward to bite. I kneeled mid-stride and let my greaves slide along the dungeon floor to get behind it, then stood back up to stab its lower back a few times.

The next frog charged. I rolled to the right, coming between it and the other frog while the untouched kobold dove at my face. Just as the two frogs shot their tongues. I dove for the kobold too, placing my shield between me and its claws and landed on my back on the other side. In hindsight, coming into the thick of it wasn't the brightest idea. And yeah, this early into things I could already feel the difficulty of my short reach. Before the frogs, I could just throw caution to the wind and charge, but their slick bodies neutralized my staple so thoroughly.

"That was a horrible exchange!" Tione said.

"Level one dammit!"

The kobold recovered into a lunge accompanied by three tongues, one slower than the others from the injured frog. I leapt into the slower one and was dragged into the middle, but not before running a gash through another frog with my knife and bashing the one that snared me with my shield. The kobold I punched in the snout grabbed me from behind, but I jumped into its face and did its teeth in with the helmet.

"Thank you, Gareth!"

"Helmets, Thomas!" He cheered.

I stabbed the kobold from behind me with a reverse grip and flipped it into the dazed frog, skipping back a step to open up some space but was pulled from behind and landed on my ass just in time to put my shield in front of me and stop a new frog from biting my head off. I kicked it from my off position and shrimped into a crouch to see a fresh group of four frogs and two lizards.

"Fuck."

"Need some help?" Finn said.

"I…" I rolled away from two tongues and a tail whip and turned tail to run back to put my team behind me. I put my shield up as best as I could and just prayed the group in front couldn't stop me, but I was pulled back again by the same thing that happened earlier. I hit my back a little harder this time and was encircled instead of outright attacked. "I got this!"

It's not like I was always gonna get out of this unscathed. I shouted to drive away the nerves. These bastards frequented the fiftieth floor, I wasn't gonna let anything less than that do me in. "I hate this floor so much!"

I rolled away from a lizard's tail and kept rolling to dodge another three tongues and went for the closest frog, and just clung onto it like my life depended on it, hacking and slashing my way without regard for the slime. I tanked a tail whip and got pulled back but hung on to my latest victim with my legs. The pulling stopped, and I stabbed the frog enough that it stopped. After that I was hit by another two tongues and pulled two ways, until I scraped the one attached to my left shoulder with my knife and was dragged into a lizard. I kept it from snapping at my head and stabbed and hacked where I could, then the tongue kept pulling but I got winded by a kobold's tackle.

Fuck.

I stabbed the kobold in the sides until it stopped struggling and pushed its limp body into the frog's waiting mouth before slitting its throat—but the knife slipped, and I had to scramble for the thing's back to put it in front of me and my back against the wall.

Shit, I couldn't tell how many were still left. I just kept stabbing the frog from behind until its body was pulled away and got a face full of fresh frog maw. My shield met its teeth and I stabbed at its throat from below, until another frog clamped its jaws down on my arm. Fuck!

 _Hey, you sure you're alright?_

"I got this!"

I soldiered through the pain, thankful for the greaves and leather jacket and repeatedly bashed the frog's head against the wall while keeping the other one still biting at my shield at bay. When the one on my arm let go, I drove my hand in, knife and all, up the roof of its mouth and wiggled the blade hard, teeth be damned—then pulled it free and stabbed the one still biting through its eye and into its skull.

The fight was a blur after that, with my scrambling for the next frog and stabbing at whatever I could, then there was a kobold whose leg I stomped on and then a lizard bit my shoulder and I stabbed its head through and stupidly hurt myself—thankfully without the blade going through the jacket. It must've been a high-level item because I could still move my arms despite the burning pain that made me want to cry out and just curl into a ball. Frogs kept coming and I kept grabbing and stabbing and getting bit, pulled one way then the next tackled, stabbed back some more, got hit some more. I don't know how long it took, but all at once it was over and the blood I was bathing in just disappeared though the slime remained.

Next thing I saw was Riveria standing over me and muttering a phrase, then a soft green light passed from her to me. " _…my name is Alf_."

The green light washed over me, and the stinging subsided but the fatigue remained. I sat down where I stood, just thankful I made it through. Finn came closer with Gareth and the rest.

I caught the water skin Gareth threw. "How'd I do?"

Gareth passed me the sword and gave me a pat on the back. "So-so," he said, shaking his hand.

Finn had on a wry smile. "It was enlightening alright," he said, shaking his head. "Messy but effective, you took the blows you could, giving and taking twice what you received. It works for now, but don't get too confident with it."

"It would've been a bad day for the Loki familia if you died to that," Tione said.

Alicia crouched next to me. "You did your best," she said. She gave me a pat where the slime wasn't too thick.

It wasn't even lunch time yet. I took a deep breath.

"Let's rest for a few minutes first," Finn said.

"Thanks."

Not too long and not too short, we stood up and pressed on with me holding the short sword in my left hand. All I had to do was stab, slashing could wait when I was better used to things. Block, bash, and stab. Keep it simple. Nothing fancy, nothing risky. The next group we met was two lizards, two frogs, and a kobold.

"Take it slow," Gareth said.

I nodded and stepped forward. The buckler was about a foot across, just enough to block a frog's mouth but not enough to fully serve as a wall. The hall was just large enough for something to be able to slip by and flank me, I couldn't enclose it all on my own. That wasn't an excuse to fight risky though, nothing ventured nothing gained, but not all risks needed to have my full weight thrown behind them. Looks like the fifth floor was my match for now.

I approached the group with my shield up with my right and my blade in my left hand waiting right behind. Perhaps I should've had the sword in the right, but I think controlling the shield was more important than the blade I'd just stab forward with.

The kobold lunged but I rolled back in favor of dodging the tongues, and a quick half-step back made the mutt mistime his grab, enough of an opening to bash with my shield and stab it in the gut when it flinched. Who knew that thing the Spartans did in 300 would actually work like this. I stepped back after I pulled out the blade, shield up once more.

"You should've been fighting like that from the start!" Tione said.

"Experience points dammit!" If keeping my connection with Loki could keep my magic stat running, then that meant running around a lot and getting hit was actually more beneficial than not. "It promotes status growth!"

"That's not how it works!"

"Yeah it is!" I dodged a tail whip and rolled away from the tongues. "My fight!"

I hopped forward into a lizard who moved to bite, I bashed it then stabbed—but missed. "Shit."

"It was right in front of you!"

I ran into the lizard and stabbed it where the neck met the body instead, making it twitch before it went limp. This was… so boring. A tongue pulled my shield away and opened me for a tail whip, but I stepped into the pull and was able to twist back into a defensive pose after scraping the sword against the attached tongue. The tail whip came again from the side, but the shield was enough to parry it with, diffusing the force by keeping my shoulder loose and moving with the hit.

It made sense to do so at the time and looks like it was for the best.

I stepped to the right, hugging the wall and coming closer to the lizard, putting it between the two frogs. The bite came, I bashed, and ran into it again with the same stab that did the earlier one in. And then there were two. I threw the short sword away and drew my knife.

"What the hell was that for?!"

"Experience points."

I lunged the frog for another stabby-stabby wrestling session. Another two frogs joined in just as I was about to finish off the first one and I had to double back to my sword and resume the same boring method, but I did so and slowly but steadily ended the fight.

"That was stupid what you did near the end," Finn said with a sigh.

"It would've net me higher points in the long run."

"Again, it doesn't work like that," Tione said.

"Remind me to show you my stat growth later."

She grumbled but let the matter go.

"Thomas," Gareth said, "you're really abusing the jacket I lent you, aren't you?"

"Yes I am."

" _Exactly_ like Loki," Riveria said.

We kept going through the fifth floor, and whenever one monster was left behind in the encounter, I'd throw my sword away close by to wrestle it down and roll away to pick it back up should another encounter start. Doing this was bound to rack up the stat gains across the board. Dodging and moving most likely pertains to agility, while tanking hits—hopefully including self-inflicted ones—probably added to endurance, while the monster wrestling was good for strength and dexterity. I also made sure to twirl my swords whenever I could when I wasn't foreseeing an attack or an exchange to rack up the dex. It was really getting to Tione's nerves.

When we reached the sixth floor, Gareth pulled me in close. "The monsters native to the sixth floor are the War Shadows." He looked me straight in the eyes. "Don't take these lightly."

I swallowed. "Understood, Gareth."

The group let me loose on the Dungeon with that. Also, it was fortunate we weren't meeting anyone else during our trips, perhaps the place was large enough to accommodate everyone? Or maybe the rest of them were keeping the others away so I could hunt in peace? I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I met three War Shadows for my first encounter. They were slender blackish things that stood out against the Dungeon's green glow, they had three claws on each hand and a totally obvious weak spot which was the singular eye thing in the middle of their heads. The difficulty then was in reaching said eyes because they were as tall as me, which probably meant they were just as strong or stronger.

"Maybe now's a good time to use my magic?"

"That's alright Thomas," Riveria said. "Feel free whenever."

"I'll kill the other two first."

"Alright," she replied.

The other members of the party scattered forwards and backwards, most likely to lead people away for a while. It was best I took care of this as fast as I could. Also, I really should've used this on some goblins instead. But then experience points… so, go figure.

I charged for the nearest shadow, shield out with sword behind it. It lunged forward with its claws reared back, the other two on either of its flanks. They were better coordinated. I backpedaled just as the lead one closed its arms on me and stepped leftwards to meet the other war shadow and got down to one knee to barely get away from the sharp hug and charged its side, driving the edge of my blade against its neck and pulling back to slit its throat. It worked!

The black figure dropped to its knees.

I lunged for the right most one and easily pushed it into the wall with my shield and drove it in, crushing it. After bashing in those slippery frogs, these things were a cake walk, they were faster though, and those sharp claws could do way more damage in a short time than those yawning amphibians. The last one I backpedaled from to give me some time to prepare.

"Ready," I said. I raised my guard once more.

"Concentrate on your magic and say your incantation," Riveria said, "the Falna will take care of the rest."

"How do you concentrate magic?"

The war shadow came running after me.

"You feel it in your source and pull."

"Yeah, that's not ringing a bell."

I rolled out of the way.

"You'll figure it out."

"Easy for you to say!"

The war shadow swiped with its claws for my head and I leaned back to avoid it and weaved in to avoid another swipe before rolling away.

"This isn't working!"

"Then just say the chant."

Another claw swipe came for my head.

"Madness!" Nothing happened. I had to weave my head back.

"Are you still talking to Loki?"

I weaved another claw. Actually, this might be good practice! "Yes!"

"Stop it."

"What?" I dodged another claw swipe and even threw in a kick. "Why?"

"Because you're already using a spell."

"What? You can't dual cast?"

"What are you a spirit?"

"Fine." I cut off the connection to Loki.

 _I'm still here though._

"How do I turn it off?"

"We really should've thought this through better. Just kill that war shadow for now," Riveria said.

I threw away the sword and shield and took up a boxing stance, weaving in and out of the war shadow's wild swings and jabbing and hooking it with my own punches. It wasn't so tough as to not feel the punches, but it wasn't getting pushed back either. It did a big swing and I tackled it into the ground, swiftly manipulating it into an arm bar and got my leg scratched.

"What are you doing?!" Tione said from way back elsewhere.

I let the war shadow go, good thing I had the greaves. I lunged for it again, shooting for its legs and punched it in the crotch.

"That doesn't work!" Tione said.

I swept the thing's legs from under it and mounted it from the back, making sure to control its arms with my legs and arms, then squeezed in to put its neck between my arms and pulled as hard as I could—its head giving away a good hard tug after.

"Why?!"

"Because I can!"

I picked up my gear and carved the stones out of the shadows as the others returned with flat stares. I was a little scratched up but otherwise fine. The war shadows weren't as durable which meant I had more freedom to toss them around provided they couldn't gang up on me and fuck up my face.

"So, you didn't even know how to turn off your first spell," Riveria said. She was unreadable. But Alicia next to her had a very sour look and Tione was simply livid. Finn and Gareth were just laughing it off.

"I thought it was a passive."

Finn just opened and closed his mouth, gesturing for Riveria to continue. "Thomas," Riveria said, "all magics are active, only skills can be passive."

I nodded. "Thank you for that."

"How do you usually talk to Loki?"

"I just think about it."

Riveria massaged the bridge of her nose. "Let's do it this way," she said, holding out a hand. "Here, try and see if you can feel my magic."

Alicia gave me a dirty look, but I complied with the instructor's order regardless.

" _Harbinger of the end, the white snow._ " Riveria's voice seemed to echo and half-way through the first syllable a glowing circle of… power, for lack of a better word, appeared beneath her feet.

 _"Blow with the wind before the twilight."_

There was a weight of sorts that just inflated, like there was a lead balloon just beyond my fingertips.

 _"Closing light, the freezing land."_

I let go of Riveria's hand and… dug for that same sensation I felt Loki call from me before, the great shifting. I focused on the feeling, remembering the gravity of it, its immensity and complexity and called, " _Madness_."

I felt the pull of something far away echo in my ears and the Dungeon's walls seemed to dim. Panic—rather, excitement filled my veins. It moved in and through me like a swirl of wind, whole and heavy.

"Congratulations," Riveria said, pointing at my hand.

I held it in front of me and saw it engulfed in black mist, like a clouded flame too dispersed to burn. It glowed purplish and lapped and twisted in tendrils. "That's pretty edgy."

"I'm sorry?" Riveria tilted her head.

"Just something we say back home." Like how to describe this… thing. It was my magic yes, just strange to have it feel like this.

"How do you feel?" Riveria asked. Alicia stepped closer with Tione, while Finn and Gareth were satisfied just hanging back.

I closed my hand, feeling the ethereal tendrils weave about. "Like something keeps squirming, it feels weird."

Riveria nodded. "It's your magic, regardless of what it looks like."

Finn clapped his hands. "Let's have you test it out then have lunch?"

"Sure."

I turned off the magic by disconnecting with the feeling of that presence, and the mists dissipated. I called on the weight again and like clockwork, the mists came back on. I kept trying to move the mists around as we walked around looking for a fight.

"First time spell users usually faint from using their magic too much" Tione said. "You've been wasting Mind turning on and off your magic for so long and you were also using your first spell all this time too. Do you have such a high capacity for magic?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, but magic is my highest stat right now," I said, "it's possibly because of my Developmental Abilities."

"You said abilities," Alicia cut in. She looked at Riveria who shook her head, then at Finn who shrugged, and last was Gareth who sighed. "I see."

Tione gave Alicia a back rub. "Shh, it's not you. It's him."

I kept the magic dancing between my fingertips, feeling the weight undulate and spread through my hand, the mists engulfing them in a hazy black. I tried to extend the weight away from my hand, but the mists wouldn't follow my imaginary… imagined thing. "Part of our being here was to test my limits anyway."

We met a frog shoot and three war shadows next, and I engulfed my arms in the mists, the magic easily seeping into my sword and shield.

"It seems to be an enchantment type," Riveria said.

"Cool, I mean, nice." I charged the group of four with the same shield forward stance, but this time with a shroud of black mist.

A war shadow swung for me and I blocked its strike with my shield, the black mist attaching itself to the monster. It didn't writhe in pain or show any visible effects, but the black spread out from where it touched. I blocked another two strikes from the surrounding war shadows, batting away what I couldn't block with the flat of the blade. Was it just me or was this getting easier? A tongue almost pulled my shield away but the tug of it wasn't strong enough to put me off. I was able to cut the tongue off and open a gash in one war shadow with the same swing.

This was off.

I backpedaled and… the war shadows gave chase, but they seemed—or were slower than I was used to. I stepped in and stabbed one in the gut by blocking its face with my shield, its arms grabbing feebly onto the buckler. It wanted to retaliate but couldn't. I bashed the next one and stabbed it in the gut, then hooked the leg of the last one with the gash with a quick kick up and I fell on top of it shield first. The frog shooter fell a moment later.

The fight ended as it begun, with my arms still engulfed in my black mist. I ended the spell and the black was gone, I then got to cutting out the crystals.

"Interesting," Riveria said, "those monsters moved slower after your magic touched them."

"Their steps weren't as big," Finn said. "And that frog shooter couldn't pull you away. Your status couldn't have changed that fast so we can most likely say your magic made the pull of the tongue weaker."

"I agree," Gareth added. "The war shadows were attacking normally, but they looked strained."

"It's most likely a weakening enchant," Riveria said, "given the way your magic clung to the monsters."

"That's good magic," Tione said.

Alicia nodded with lips pursed. "It suits Thomas too well."

What was that supposed to mean? "I'm sure I can verify that hypothesis," I said. "Let's go for the next encounter."

We found a group of three frog shooters and three war shadows. I took care of everything and saved one frog for the test. I opened some space between us and put up my shield and waited. Its tongue shot out and hit the target I presented pulling me off my feet like usual. It dragged me over to where it stood, and I quickly rolled away to open up some distance. I activated my magic and waited once more.

The tongue shot out and contacted the black mist—and tugged, but it didn't take me away. Not enough to completely nullify its pull, but just enough for me to resist.

"I can confirm the weakening effect." I finished off the frog after.

"I can see that," Riveria said.

"Methodical," Finn said.

"All hail the power of science!"

"If only he wasn't so similar to Loki," Alicia said.

"So," I said, "what happens if you run out of mana, I mean, of Mind?" Wasn't Mind just mana?

Loki? You there?

 _You rang?_

Is Mind, mana?

 _Not in the sense you're probably thinking of, but sure, you can say that._

Close enough!

"You'll faint," Riveria said.

"Can you die from it?"

"If you pass out in the middle of a fight, yes, but not usually from Mind Down by itself."

"Good," I said, "I have an idea."

"Why does he say it like it's a bad thing?" Tione said.

Loki, so Mind Down is like running out of mana?

 _Sure, yeah._

How bad is it?

 _I don't know, I've never experienced it._

"Riveria, what does Mind Down feel like?"

"Like the morning of a bad hangover with Loki chasing you with a bikini in hand."

"Was that from experience?"

"We don't speak of it anymore," Gareth said.

"We almost lost the manor that time," Finn added.

"Right, I want to feel that Mind Down thing."

"I was kidding when I spread the rumor about how you liked getting whipped," Tione said.

"That was you?" Alicia said with a frown.

"Bah!" I said, "Stats! And it's better to see how much magic I can cast, right?"

"He makes a good point," Gareth said.

So I kept my magic on, constantly moving it around and seeing what I could do with it, what I couldn't, what it felt like, and what else was possible. Same as before, it felt like moving a presence I was vaguely aware of, with the tendrils feeling like water flowing and lapping about. Fun fact though, is that I could use it to cover my face, and according to everyone it made my eyes glow yellow. After hearing that, I couldn't help the temptation to cover my entire body with my magic: anti-form, get!

"Stop being creepy," Tione said.

"Sorry," my voice came out distorted, like if chalkboard scratches could come in a tenor.

"Please don't do that again," Alicia said.

"You mind letting me feel that?" Tione said.

I looked at Riveria still cloaked in the mist, she narrowed her eyes at me and I dispelled it from my face. Proficiency was very important with dealing with new things. "Will it be alright?"

"She'll be fine," Riveria said, "she'll most likely not be as affected thanks to the level difference."

I removed the rest of the cloak and left it only on my palm, before presenting it to Tione.

She touched the mist with her hand and inspected the magical affliction. "It feels like touching syrup." She flexed her hand. "It's not so bad."

"Level difference," I said.

Tione shrugged.

We met some more monsters after that, even going so far as to reach the stairs to the sixth floor. My magic really removed a lot of the pressure the frog shooters put on with their ranged pull, and with the war shadows enfeebled, they quickly fell to the stabs. Lizards also didn't stand much of a chance with the reduction of their tail whip's power. We just kept wandering the sixth floor waiting for me to pass out.

#

I woke up in a darkened room with just enough light to see myself in a four-poster bed and covered in rose petals. My head hurt like someone cracked a cinder block over it. "Loki."

She entered my vision from the left, laying down side ways next to me. "Yes, dear?"

"Is this supposed to be a joke?"

"Yep."

"Thank you."

She placed a hand on my chest. "You missed dinner."

"I also have a massive headache," I added.

"You were so wild last night."

"If only I could remember." I looked at her. "Err, tell me you were you kidding."

"I was kidding." She patted my cheek. "I figured you could go crazy or something with that magic. I had the three come with you to be sure."

"I figured as much," I said with a shrug. "And thanks for keeping an eye on me."

"Don't mention it," she said. She laid her head on my shoulder. "You should really get some food."

" _We_ ought to get some food."

"Feed me."

"Wasn't I the one in need of nursing?"

"Wouldn't you rather get to touch a budding young lady during the entirety of your dinner?"

"If by budding then you mean still growing, and _trying_ really—"

She pushed me off the bed. But at least she helped me stand and get dressed.

"Did I have to be topless though?"

Loki put a finger on my lips. "Shh, you talk too much."

We exited her room and saw it was nighttime. "How long was I out for?"

"Three days," Loki said with a straight face.

I glared at her.

"Two hours."

I rolled my eyes.

She hugged me and stuck her cheek against mine. "Too fun, Tom."

On our way down, we passed Riine who gave us a thumbs up.

I looked at Loki.

"She's the one I asked for the flower petals."

I shrugged. "Did Finn and the others already tell you about the voice changing thing?"

"They did," she said, "I wanna see." Her eyes were sparkling.

"Can't you at least get a body guard first? You don't know jack shit about my magic besides what this Arcana thing told you, right?"

"Eh, it's fine."

I frowned at her.

"I trust you, Tom."

"Well I don't trust something called _Madness_."

We got to the ground floor and most everyone there were simply lounging about. Lefiya was happily chatting away with Alicia, Anakity, and Elfy. Elfy was Lefiya's room mate and a human, and she was a level three like her roomie. Rakta was also level three, while Alicia, Anakity, Cruz, and Raul were level fours. There were only three level ones in the Loki familia right now, namely: me, Tina, and Agata. It was totally in character for Loki to favor women.

Finn was there drinking wine with Gareth and Riveria, and they waved when they saw us.

"Glad to see you up," Finn said.

"I feel like shit."

"I told you so," Riveria said.

Gareth hummed in agreement. "Looking forward to repeating it?"

"If it helps bump up my magic stat, sure."

Loki put a hand on my shoulder and shook her head. .

"Then that's a no for sure."

"We're going out to have dinner," Loki said, "I'd feel bad to make Thomas here eat all by his lonesome."

"You mean you want to go on a date with him," Riveria said.

I looked at Loki. "We don't mind joiners?"

She shook her head.

"But your joiners would mind you," Riveria added.

"Savage."

"Very," Loki concurred.

We left the manor and walked side by side along Orario's well lit night scene, the magic lamps dotting the streets every ten feet or so. It was so surreal to see the familiar sight of activity in the night, the same yet completely alien, powered not by electricity but with ingenuity all the same. People chatted and laughed as they went about their activities, unbothered and unhampered by the starlit sky. Though, with this many stars and the moon so bright, I doubted total darkness could be found with at least expending some effort.

I earned a total of sixteen thousand Varis and change from this morning, all thanks to the bigger war shadow crystals. Tomorrow I'd shoot for a deeper floor, the sixth level was already manageable thanks to my magic, and all this steamrolling was starting to get on my nerves. Individually, the monsters couldn't really give me a run for my money, but it was the combinations that made it so much more difficult. Also, I'd have to go with just Gareth tomorrow since Finn and Riveria would need to make up for the time they gave today to make some more cash.

My pouch was filled with five thousand Varis, enough for even the most expensive restaurant in Orario for two. Finn made sure to tell me which places Loki frequented before we left, and I promised him I'd make sure she had a good time. My head still hurt a bit, but it wasn't anything a good cup of coffee wouldn't fix. If I had to call it something, it felt a lot like pulling an all-nighter at work and having to show up at like six in the morning after getting just three hours of sleep.

"What are you thinking about?" Loki asked.

"That people are amazing," I said, "the view I'm seeing now looks so familiar with the lamps and the cobblestones, but these lights are from magic and not electricity." Loki smiled. "I was also thinking that the after effects of Mind Down feel a lot like pulling off an all-nighter at work."

"The official explanation," Loki said, "is that the brain is used as a conduit to channel the mystery of a magic spell subconsciously, so if you use it too much, your grey matter shorts out."

"And the real explanation?"

"It's close, but the brain is instead used to focus knowledge it doesn't normally know to impose a change in the world. The fainting is you running out of sugar to fuel the subconscious thinking."

"So in other words, the smarter you are the more you can use magic?"

"Not exactly per se," Loki said. She ruffled my hair. "It's actually related to how much stress you can take."

"Huh, neat." I puffed up my chest. "Stress is the friend of any corporate slave!"

We went to Babel tower and went straight to the opposite street, and eventually reached a square with a goddess' statue. Loki said it wasn't honoring any specific goddess, just some abstract sculpture from a few hundred years ago. There was a fountain fueled by magic too, which was amazing since it meant Orario could afford the magically powered fixture. We went straight on past it and headed for the small hill overlooking the city. There was a restaurant here called the Rabbit House which was a sort of hobbit hole place cut into the hill with outdoor tables under the stars. It was a popular place, but its high price kept the lines short enough.

Loki and I were seated as soon as we got there.

We got an outdoor table for two, it was a sizeable round table with a lamp shade that kept the light to just within the bounds of the table and just high enough to illuminate our faces without taking away from the main spectacle—the backdrop of stars.

"I can see why you like the place." I passed Loki a menu.

"It also helps that all the waitresses are hume bunnies," Loki added, proud. Hume Bunnies were the name rabbit people went by, like Human or Elf or Dwarf. "Also, Finn's kind are called Parrums, just in case you called them Halflings or Hobbits."

"Gotcha, and anything I should avoid?"

"Hold that thought."

A waitress came by to get our orders, Loki got herself a meat platter while I got a pasta with meat balls. Loki called it boring but I said it was a necessity to compare the cuisines here and back home. The food was mostly European in aesthetic, but I was craving something more distinctly Asian. The meat balls were to establish a base line, and vanilla ice cream would be next on the list if and when I do find it.

"The other gods," Loki said. Her expression turned sour. "Speak of the devil."

"Oh my," a sweet an velvety alto—

 _Hey!_

She sounds hot, Loki.

"Loki!" some lady said.

 _Better._

I turned back and—damn.

 _Tsk._

"Oh," she said, "is this a…" Her immaculate face turned three shades of uncertain before settling for confusion. "What sort of company are you keeping?"

Weren't godly powers supposed to be sealed away?

 _It can only hold back so much, if that's the main core of the god, parts of it still leak through. Why do you suppose all my children, you included, are so lucky?_

"He's from far away," Loki said. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Freya?"

Oh shit. That's her?!

And that's when I felt it, like the looming shadow of some titan that blotted out the stars in the sky. I turned my head towards the chill—and saw a giant of a man with disproportionately cute ears standing a few steps away from Freya.

 _That's Ottar, the only level seven in Orario. That's the man you have to surpass if you want to get home._

He's… something else.

"Can't a lady simply want the company of her sister?"

Wait, weren't you supposed to be some frost giant.

 _Don't sweat the details._

Noted.

"I'm kind of in the middle of a date," Loki said under her breath.

Why are you being cute in this situation?

"Eh?" Freya said with… mirth? "My dearest sister is on a date?" Freya glared at me and I felt the entirety of Ottar's attention fall on my sorry level one ass. " _You_ ," she said with the weight of a god in mortal flesh, infinite and unbound elsewhere and beyond. "If you hurt her, you die."

Smarter men would've kept quiet in the face of that. "We're just friends for now."

I swear I'd probably get struck by a lightning bolt with how turned on I was right now and all this dangerous shit and shit I think I just pissed off Ottar. Freya raised an eyebrow and stared straight into my soul. Possibly literally. " _Are_ you?"

Everything stopped. And, that was a very good question. I looked at Loki. "Are we?"

Loki looked away. "Hey," she said, "don't just ask me that out of the blue!" She looked at Freya, one hand covering her face from my view. "Just be cool for once alright?! Please?"

Freya's smile was both cruel and divine.

And that was how we ended up having dinner with Orario's strongest god and strongest falna bearer. Freya had a salmon fillet I swear wasn't in the menu and Ottar was eating an amazingly healthy dinner with lots of greens, a respectable portion of protein, a bit more fat than usual, and a light alcohol to aid digestion. And it was even more enchanting to watch him eat with such grace despite his huge and grotesque frame.

 _Hey, at least look at me some more than Ottar._

Why do you think my foot's touching yours?

 _Smooth. Real smooth._

Freya cleared her throat and me and Loki looked at her at the same time, she laughed like a hundred twinkling stars. Loki pouted at me. "You know," Freya said, "if I didn't know better, I'd say you two could read each other's minds." She smiled like a teen girl love struck. "That's sooo cute!"

Expectations were broken everywhere. Ottar was the graceful sculpture he'd always been since our food came. Loki was a hot mess. And Freya was definitely some psycho underneath all that fluff. And me, well, at least I had a funny story to tell tomorrow.

If I lived to tell the tale that is.

The small talk and dinner plates eventually ran their course, and all the while Freya kept grilling me for my family background, plans for the future, and whether I was aware of Loki's ambitions and dream to be the head of Orario's strongest familia. Freya currently had that position, she admitted, but she was also looking forward to seeing the competition from her dearest Lokipoo. _Lokipoo_. Gold. That was gold. My aching foot was so worth the vindication and the doting older sister was only too happy to notice me soldiering through the pain. There was also that really _really_ weird monologue about a cute rabbit running around desperately in the burrow and how beautiful its struggles were, Loki made sure I was quiet for that part, and then just like they appeared, the two left just as abruptly. They also foot the bill for us, it was a nice gesture to end the otherwise insane night.

"What the hell just happened?" I looked at Loki for answers.

"Ugh," she said, "can't she just leave me to my shit for once!"

I smiled at her.

"Don't you dare."

" _Lokipoo_."


	4. Vol 1 Chapter 3

**Volume 1**

 **Chapter 3**

That took the cake for weirdest shit so far.

We left the Rabbit House in a daze, just thankful we got away from that crazy lady in one piece. We walked the same way back with languid steps, the air thick with Freya's perfume. The scent of it seemed to linger like an afterglow even if it no longer made sense for us to still smell it. Just as heavy was Ottar in my memory, as if his footsteps wrote some unseen history wherever he passed. Here walked the King it seemed to say. It was baffling just considering why they chose to meet with us. Was it simple chance? Or perhaps Freya was interested in me? Maybe Freya was interested in something else from Loki? What was there to gain? There were too many questions with too little clues and too many rules to take into account.

The sister act I think at least was genuine since it lacked the deliberate poise of a plan in motion. It was that or I couldn't read Freya well enough. It was a chilling thought. I'd like to think I was capable of going toe to toe with the incarnated gods to some extent if it came to wits, but only now did I truly feel in over my head. Freya was just so different, and Ottar was just as transcendent. If any, the man was devoted to the T. It was in the way he held himself behind and with her, so natural and at ease despite how truly _other_ she was.

And that was the hurdle I needed to reach and surpass.

Could I do it? No, it wasn't a question of could, or could not. There was only do or die trying. To give up was just as good as to accept death, and to be able to come home but be too late was just as horrible. No. I needed to get back as soon as I could. My life, family, and friends were worth whatever the cost.

I was still so painfully weak.

"You'll get there," Loki said.

"I know." I clenched my fist. "But if it took too long, then it'd be for nothing in the end."

"It's not indolence."

"But it _is_ inability."

"Working yourself to death would be counterproductive."

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

Loki ruffled my hair. "Careful, or else my sister might end up taking an interest in you."

"I think she already has, but only because I'm involved with you."

"Yeah…"

"She's still family though." I smiled at her.

"That she is," she said with a gentle smile. "She's one crazy bitch. But she's still my sister."

"And I've got family too."

"I know." She held my hand and squeezed. "I saw."

I pulled her close and we walked with my arm over her shoulder. She was so comfortably warm. "I'm really enjoying my time here with you, Loki. With everyone. You have a wonderful family."

" _We're_ family," she said, looking up into my eyes.

"We are." By her blood and power.

She rested her head on my shoulder. "I promise you," she said. "You _will_ get there."

I breathed the scent of her in. "Is it so bad to want both? To both go home and stay?" If I could come back and forth at will, then it could easily solve everything. There was magic here, the very thing I prayed so hard for back home was already here and within my grasp. It was my dreams and fantasies come true, and it also affirmed the beliefs I so stubbornly kept with the existence of the next best thing. If there could be gods, then surely, there _could_ be a God.

"My greedy little human," Loki said.

"To desire is to live." I stretched a hand towards the heavens. "I already have magic, would divinity be such a huge thing to ask for?"

Loki simply smiled.

It went without saying. I wasn't hearing her thoughts right now, and neither was she. Not because I couldn't, but because we were still our own persons with our own thoughts and fears. I wanted to pick her brain and get the answers I wanted to hear, but just because I could didn't mean I should. And the mind of a god could just as easily drive me mad as it would enlighten me, or so I figured. Was it worth the risk? No. I already had the means within my grasp, I just needed to execute them better.

In fact, I needed to step it up.

"Could I bother you to update my status when we get back?"

"Sure Thomas," Loki said, "but in exchange, you're buying desert."

She led me to a small corner of the babel tower still open despite the time. I checked my phone and saw it was already eleven in the evening. Loki saw the gadget and gaped, then shoved her hands into my pockets to hide the thing. She gave me that look that called me all three shades of stupid and then some. No words passed, just that intense glare.

To be fair, it was indeed pretty stupid of me to do that. "I dun goofed."

Loki shook her head. "Please tell me you only use that at home?"

"I've only brought it out now, and I couldn't bring this down to the Dungeon, so yes, I've only used this at home for music."

Loki's eyes went wide. "You have music in there?" She grabbed me by the collar. "If your taste is shit, I swear to me, I'll… shit. I can't even grill you for it. Just let me listen in? This place doesn't have jack shit."

This was probably the first time I'd ever been able to shoot Loki a smug look. "I have _headphones_."

Loki kneeled as if her prayers were answered by some distant higher power. A shit ton of people looked our way, including a few gods. They stood out from the cookie cutter masses without even trying, the very air about them as if carrying a glimpse of inspiration or awe, wonder too. There was a pair of goddesses who looked and pointed our way, a tall red-haired one with an eye patch and a short one with black hair in twin-tails and a ginormous pair. Like, how the hell was she even keeping her balance huge.

They ran over to us with incredulous looks and Loki grabbed onto my arm with a victorious smile.

"Loki?!" twin-tails said. "How?!"

Loki laughed all haughty.

"Impressive," the red-haired said as one eye… eyed me up and down.

"Be amazed!" Loki said. "This one's _mine_."

Twin-tails scoffed.

Loki lifted my tunic up and presented the magically crafted abdominals with jazz hands. I felt so objectified, but it was a funny and strange feeling nonetheless. It's not one I'd welcome every day, but it was fine for the occasional entertainment value. Twin-tails shielded her eyes but peeked through the gaps anyway. She then steeled herself and puffed her chest up, looking at me expectantly.

It was pretty awkward.

Twin-tails grabbed Loki and pulled her close. "You used your Arcana to charm a mortal?!"

Loki laughed with long drawn out syllables, emphasizing the exhale with each one to really project the sounds. "Admit it," she said. "He _wants_ me." She nodded at me. "Tell them."

"Please don't make me say it in public."

Eye-patch gave twin-tails a pat on the shoulder and shook her head. "You've lost this one Hestia," she said. "This one's interested _exactly_ in that."

Hestia spat. Literally. It was a sight to see the goddess of hearth and home so crass. "This ironing-board just got lucky." She harrumphed and turned away. "I'll go on ahead, Hephaistos. I know when to quit while I'm ahead."

Right. Sure. Hephaestus the disfigured smith was a hot lady. I could roll with that.

Loki did a small dance at the petty victory. And when Hestia had left, she went back to her normal self. "That shorty finally got what was coming to her." Loki nodded, then turned to Hephaestus. "And have you heard your Tsubaki snared my Thomas here, she's got a good eye."

"Spare me the puns Loki," Hephaistos said. "And yes, she was also really excited about that knife he showed her."

Loki turned to look at me like some demonic doll with stuck joints. Looks like I couldn't sell that knife anymore. I'd be an idiot to do it now seeing how close Tsubaki was to her patron, which shouldn't even be a surprise. In hindsight, I really ought to pay more attention to these higher levelled people in their familias. On second thought, anyone above level two I ought to look out for. Still, this wasn't that bad a thing since I haven't sold it yet, and it's not like I was strapped for cash. Also, it occurred to me that selling the thing could easily spread word of my circumstances. And if it really got out, then Freya might try and snap me right up, and that was only if she were the only one crazy enough to go on that wild goose chase. If Hestia was _that_ bad, what more everyone else?

"Thomas here isn't very good with pushy types," Loki said, apologetic.

The look on Hephaistos's face called her bullshit out a mile away. It went without saying it took a certain mentality to deal with Loki it seemed, though she and her familia were the only tolerable people I'd met so far, barring getting to know the others outside her familia. Okay, so I hadn't really gotten to know anyone else besides her and sure she could still just as easily be lying to and using me. She gave me magic though, and even if I tried running then her level sixes could easily screw me over. I hadn't seen any signs of malice yet, so I was safe for now. But, how hard would it be to kill a higher-level person? And, how much experience would _that_ net me? But since the guild existed, I doubt I could live in peace after that. What's more, with this Falna system, there was probably some permission needed from the god before someone could leave the familia. I would've had the same safeguards in place for sure.

Sinister, but effective.

"Sure, Loki," Hephaestus said. She scratched her cheek. "Tsubaki was also really excited with getting your child here a contract with her, said he was destined to make waves."

Loki raised her chin. "Sounds about right."

"She didn't want to miss another sword princess. Hephaestus chuckled, it was a graceful, throaty sound. "Is he more stable at least?" She raised an eyebrow, a small smile hiding behind the light jab.

"Probably," Loki said after a slight pause.

"Hey!"

"I mean, sure he is," she said with a grin.

"Anyone besides Finn… wait, no. _No one_ in her familia is sane, stable is a horrible comparison because there's no one to compare with."

"You're talking about your fellow children, mind you," Hephaestus said.

"That's _exactly_ why I can say that."

Hephaestus looked at Loki, she shrugged. "Kids say the darndest things, eh?"

Hephaestus shook her head. "He reminds me of you."

"That just means he's even _more_ amazing," Loki said. "That reminds me, I have a business pitch for you but let's talk about it tomorrow. Same place?"

Hephaestus nodded. "Showing off, hmm?"

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Maybe, but really, this time I got something _big_ planned."

"Sure," Hephaestus said, "you always come through for me anyway." She turned to me. "I'm looking forward to your business then." She extended her hand.

I took it and gently squeezed, just enough to convey confidence but not enough to be creepy. "Thank you, and it was a pleasure to meet you too, Hephaestus."

"You're a scholar?" Hephaestus asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"You called me with an older name," she said.

"Oh, I apologize. I didn't mean to offend if I did." Was it rude to do that? I couldn't get used to how they said her name, but I ought to. I might end up blowing my cover if I just up and said some god's name without knowing the local tone. Though, it ought to be more prudent to just avoid saying any god's name besides Loki's.

"Don't mind it," Hephaestus said. "It was just a pleasant surprise."

We said our goodbyes after that and Hephaestus excused herself, saying the night was already late. She also confirmed the time and place for tomorrow's meeting with Loki. She carried herself professionally and with dignity, a complete one-eighty from Loki, but she also seemed like a boring person. And if her familia was all as serious as her then I wouldn't survive long there. Ah, and they were a trade familia too, so they probably had no big reasons to go down into the dungeon, levelling up would be a lot harder with them too.

Loki dragged me over to the shop she wanted to go to and I saw this place that looked like a retro soda fountain bar complete with the: fixed stools, long counter top, and the iconic bright red lights that spelled out the name of the place, Aegir's. The place was a neat little shop enclosed by large glass windows and the way in was a glass door just like any I'd see in the metro. We went in and the place was cooled with the soft thrum of magical air-conditioning and the scent of vanilla filled the air.

"What."

Loki lifted my jaw off the floor. "I knew you'd like the place." She pulled my hand and had me sit on one of the stools, the polished tiled floors in checkered black and white reflecting the dull colors of my clothes and the red lights. "Aegir serves the best shakes anywhere—since she's the only one willing to really spend on it."

A small lady who was only a head taller than the counter came in from the polished steel double doors. They swung freely back and forth, like those you'd see in any diner by the road side. She had blue hair in neat ponytail and wore a crisp white uniform complete with that iconic paper hat. I'd never been to a soda fountain before, but I'd seen enough Coca Cola ads to know what one looked like, and this, this was just amazing!

"Hey Aegir," Loki said with a smile.

"Hey Loki," she said. She couldn't have been less enthused with our being here. "You having the usual?"

Loki nodded. "And can I borrow the menu? New guy might want something different."

I was pretty sure Aegir sounded like a dude's name but what the hell did I know.

Aegir reared her head back and tilted it at Loki. "Okay?" she said. She then passed me a stiff paper board carefully painted in with delicate detail, the letters in the usual blocky serif and the colors that popped out from everything else.

There was only one logical choice to make in any new shake place. It was the one true test of a good mix, of whether they had a killer shake. "I'll have a vanilla, plain."

Aegir looked at Loki—who shrugged. The former shook her head and punched it into the mechanical register that returned a bill of three thousand Varis. Jeebus. "You ordered for one vanilla shake and one chocolate yoghurt and mead shake with a raw egg."

"What."

"Yeah," Aegir said. She shook her head.

I looked at Loki.

"No judging."

"It must've been tough."

"It really has."

I passed her the money and Aegir got to work on her stuff and damn were her hands a blur. It was magical—wait, yeah, sure, let's say that was literal magic. Her hands were magic in the way they kept the evils properly blended within Loki's drink that it didn't look like a disaster one bit. It smelled alright, against the logical expectation, and it was a testament to her skill and dedication to providing the service that really saw it through.

After that was my milkshake, it barely took any effort from the divine mixer.

Aegir passed our drinks from the bar by sliding them over the counter. Loki and I got our orders in those milkshake glasses complete with the striped red straws. It was the exact experience I never thought I'd ever get to experience, and it was in a whole 'nother world no less! Hell yeah! Screw those hipsters from audit!

It tasted like world peace. Or like reading about world peace from the morning paper while having a fresh plate of pancakes and bacon and a nice brew of coffee. It was bliss.

And soon enough I was slurping away at the leftover foam. "How?"

"I know," Loki said, looking just as euphoric as I imagined myself to be.

"This place can't be easy to maintain." I looked at Aegir and got a nod in agreement. "And pardon me, but I expected longer lines."

Aegir shrugged. "I get by," she said. "And this is just my side job."

Loki nodded. "She's another one of the top contenders for the strongest familia behind us."

"Eh," Aegir said. "If it funds my hobby, then go for it." She raised a fist but there was no energy behind the gesture.

"Her children are all in it just to spoil her."

Aegir shrugged. "They're free to do what they want."

"Which to them means making sure their goddess is happy and all her little quirks and kinks are satisfied."

Aegir nodded. "They are good children."

"Is she another sister?" I was starting to see a pattern here.

"Unfortunately," Aegir said. "And she's also a regular so I can't say no to those… things she makes me do."

"I love you too sister dear," Loki said, trying to reach over the counter but was kept at bay by Aegir's practiced hands. "And would you know if Freya's up to something again?"

Aegir sighed. "This is a soda fountain not a speakeasy, no one talks about any shady dealings here." She gestured at the lights. "I'm not a fan of those dinghy places."

"You'd be a hit if you went back to brewing though," Loki said.

"I prefer milkshakes." Aegir stroked the soda tap that dispensed milk. "Milkshakes are cute."

Yep, there was definitely a pattern here.

"Whatever floats your boat then," Loki said. "And be careful around Freya, she looks like something's caught her eye again."

"When has she ever not?" Aegir polished the glasses by the counter with a clean and white cloth.

"Good point," Loki said. She finished off the rest of her drink.

The night ended with that and good lord was it worth every Varis I spent. Aegir wished us both good night and added Loki ought to get more conventional tastes. She also put in a request for some Cadmus Spring Water which she said was the only respectable ingredient for making the sodas she had on the other tap. Loki agreed, and the usual payment was what they settled on, which was to give Loki an ninety percent discount for the month.

Which meant those drinks we had went upwards of thirty thousand. Crazy.

#

Wake up, shower, get breakfast, tease a few people, then Loki dragged me to her room for a quick status update. People were starting to comment on how clingy Loki was with her updating me every day when everyone else seemed to get it every other week. Perhaps status growth slowed down the higher one's stats were? But she wasn't as active with updating Tina and Agata, then again, it's not like I was in the manor all day.

The room was bathed in the usual blue glow.

"You've been putting monsters into submission holds," she said. "You've also been abusing your magic and equipment to their absolute limits, not to mention taking unnecessary risks just to bump up your stats."

"It's all about the grind."

A finger swipe here, another few there. "Boxing with a war shadow, that's a first. And then the age-old block and stab. You were really all over the place, Thomas." Loki pressed a sheet of paper to my back and did her thing. She passed it to me a moment after.

#

 **Level 1**

Strength = I 7 - I 47

Endurance = I 9 - I 60

Dexterity = I 15 - I 88

Agility = I 5 - I 38

Magic = I 37 - H 117

Madness Spectrum = I

Tranquil Intervention = I

World Walker = I

Fated Actor = I

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: " _Madness_ "

Saudade = An area of effect drain spell that takes the magic and life force contained in all within range and transfers it to the user. Targets stronger than the user are able to resist having their magic and life stolen. Has a five-meter radius, and a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: " _Taken from the peace of home / I now stand beyond the veil / The aberrant demands reparation_ "

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

#

"You just broke the first H level stat." She shook her head. "In _two_ days."

"Tione would get a kick out of that!"

Loki laughed in a patronizing way. "Sure, then she'll kick your ass after." She took back the sheet. "And you got another magic, and it's just as edgy as the last one."

I shrugged. "It's still good though, to have some way of replenishing mana on the go. Spend some, recover more, that's a pretty good trade off."

"Either way, you got something for wanting it bad enough." Loki scratched her head.

"Desperation seemed like a good idea to build experience."

"Technically, yes. But that's a bad way to do it since if you get used to the danger, then your returns will only suffer in the long run. Not to mention that'll end up raking up the requirements for next time." Loki sighed. "It's only been four days Thomas, try not to kill yourself."

"You know everything about me Loki." That was fact. I knew I couldn't hide anything from her. "You know why."

"It doesn't stop me from worrying." She placed a hand on my chest, her eternal grin replaced with an expression she clearly wasn't used to. "And I get your suspicions," she said. "Just… just try to believe in me, please? I'd hope to get your trust, but I'll settle for your cooperation."

I rested my head on her shoulder, she smelled of vanilla. "I can't hide that I'm still afraid, and it doesn't help me accept what I've come to be. I've been changed." I breathed her in. "It's not easy."

Loki cradled my head in her arms. "I just need you to try. That's all for now."

I wanted to say yes right there and then. That, sure, I understood, that all would be alright. But it wasn't easy at all. We were both just as clueless as far as I knew.

"Try and believe in me," she continued, "and believe in the strength you're building up." She stroked my hair, her fingertips touching my scalp. She learned how I liked having my hair played with by reading into my soul, my everything. Doubts, fears, fantasies, everything laid out before her all-encompassing empathy, including the secrets I hoped to hold in the deepest darkest corners of my mind. That intimacy scared me both because she knew everything, and also because she knew how I thought of her too.

There was Loki the malevolent god—and Loki the woman in front of me. I don't know if it was my magic, but whenever she opened my status, things would bleed through. Small things, gut feelings, the little stirrings of uncertainty. I only now noticed how her fingers would slow when the more intimate parts of me surfaced: the worst-case scenarios, the conspiracy theories, the unvoiced accusations. We weren't the perfect duo I prayed for us to be because I ultimately sought to be away from her. That, and… she was a god.

Too soft lips lightly touched my forehead. "Look at me," she said. Loki pulled my face away from her. I couldn't feel my cheeks, but I could feel her hold me in a way I didn't know I wanted. "You're here, Thomas."

"I know." And it hurt to be. It hurt to want to be here and also want to be back home.

"You'll be alright," she said. Her eyes wouldn't let me look elsewhere, it was a force both terrible and sweet. Dangerous, seductive, profoundly Ancient. It was so much more than whatever she was right now, and yet at the same time it was held in something so fragile. "I promise you," she continued, "I _will_ see you home."

I wanted to kiss her.

"Let me be the home you can come back to," she said, "for now." There was a sparkle in her eyes like the twinkling gleam of a distant star. Loki pulled me close to her chest, and what I heard was a wreck of a rhythm. The kind that sent blood banging against your ears and made you lose your calm, the kind you'd feel as you fell so hopelessly deeper and deeper.

It was a familiar beat: the sound of life.

"I'm alive too, Thomas," she said. "And I'm just as real as you are. With feelings, hopes, dreams, and fears. I am"—there was a bittersweet irony in her tone—"human, so very human that I didn't know I could be like this." She breathed out and the years seemed to pass in that moment. "You make me feel," Loki said. She slumped her shoulders. "You make me feel in a way so intense and unfamiliar that I don't know if I want to or not, but I don't have a choice, and I can't hate it either."

I held onto her hands and moved so we could see eye to eye. I tried to smile but I must've been a blushing mess. "Don't you think we're moving a little fast for… this?"

She pulled me in.

And kissed me on the cheek. "I don't know if I want to find out."

"You're a god."

"And you're impossible."

There was still that desire to get back home, and it'd never leave, but for now I had whatever this was. I moved us so our foreheads were touching. She was so warm. "Loki?"

"Yeah?"

"Can gods get pregnant?"

She pushed me off the bed. "Ruin the moment why don't cha." She crossed her arms, mouth in a pout with cheeks puffed up.

I sat on the floor, amused and giddy and just so confused. But I was happy, and that's what mattered. For now. "I was pretty sure that counted as seduction."

And that's when Loki's doors burst open and in came spilling a pile of bodies: Riveria, Lefiya, Alicia, Anakity to name a few. Basically, all of the rumormongers of the familia which meant practically everyone. I could even see Rakta's ears from all the way in the back, and even Narvi was there even if we haven't really talked all that much before.

Loki dove for the women. "Salvation!"

But everyone moved away fast enough and all she ended up with was tackling Lefiya into the ground and into a mess of limbs. She would've went ahead and had her way with the poor girl had I not picked Loki up and slung her over my shoulder.

"Hey!" she said. "This isn't one of my kinks!"

"And I'm sure it isn't one of Lefiya's either." Her thighs and small stomach were so smooth and so inviting.

"Thank you, Thomas," Lefiya said. Elfy helped her get up. The two looked at their goddess's bum. "Umm, good luck with Loki."

"We leave her in your care," Anakity said.

"Please take her away," Tione added.

"You were here too?"

"Thomas, can you put me down now?"

"I'm still enjoying your thighs."

Rakta raised her hand from behind the crowd. "Could you please put a shirt on first?"

"Skip the shirt," Loki said.

"Yeah, I can't take this anymore," Tione said. "Why won't the captain notice me already?!"

"I'm right here," Finn said with a raised hand.

I never knew a level five shouting with all her might was strong enough to shatter glass.

#

I sat on the floor of my room with my gear laid out before me.

There was the armor Gareth lent me: the leather jacket, greaves, and vambraces that were probably of such a high level that a level one like me had no business even touching them. The shield was next to the neat pile, dinged and scratched up, and seemed to be the most reasonable one I had with respect to my level. The short sword was next to it, and apparently it was called Ale. Weird to name a sword after a drink, but whatever. It was a good piece, and again it seemed too good for a level one. There was also my knife, but this one didn't count.

I also took out some other stuff from my bag that could be of use: a set of three carabiners, some stainless steel eating utensils, a flint fire starter, crank-charged flashlight, a multi-tool, and the belt included with the multi-tool for hanging it and other stuff. Not much, but utility was the focus here, not firepower. The carabiners and belt I could include under my tunic to increase the stuff I could carry on my person in a fight, the hooks would be good for holding some small things too like maybe a potion or a bomb.

I needed to ramp up my game.

A short sword could only do so much, and the fights were too slow going, perhaps to take out the monsters in one attack was what I really needed to rake up the points. Loki already said my stats were growing faster than they had any right to, and it was a combination of all the weird crap in my Falna that added up. The new additions were going to be crucial to pumping out the numbers.

There was a small risk to taking advantage of the growth given Loki's lack of knowledge though, but we didn't have a choice on the matter.

Assuming what I needed then was to only land the killing blow to receive exilia, then killing faster would be the way to go. To build stats would necessitate the execution of actions in line with the basic abilities, but if I could increase both at the same time, then that would be the most efficient. Theoretically, sticking to what I was already doing was for the best since it meant a balance between status and level. Or perhaps what was necessary was to build up stats first before the level? It made more sense to do so, but that also meant a lot of time. However, empty levels would be more harm than good.

That didn't change the fact I was on a timeline though.

Maybe I could just keep pushing floors until I found a monster I couldn't kill outright and just keep on grinding those? Risky, but it would be the real balance between status and level gain. And I've got Gareth to power me through anyway, the risk was already lowered by a lot, might as well gun for it as hard as I could.

I could spare another day to test out my hypothesis, but with what I've already done so far, the last two days should've been enough for a more educated estimation. I already killed a lot, and I was sure there was also the quality of the exilia related to the kill, so piling up all these mobs and doing an actual grind would be too exhaustive and would not be feasible with the plan.

Decided, I went up to Gareth to pitch my proposal. I found him sitting in the founding trio's usual spot, by the corner of the ground floor where all the bookshelves were. He was together with Finn and just chatting the morning away before we went back to the dungeon.

"Okay, so I have like twenty-seven days left to grind, right? I was thinking, why don't we go somewhere really low, like a level two at least floor. Then I can fight the first monster we find until I either get beaten up or I kill it. That way, if I lose, I gain a shit ton of stats, and if I win, I get the stats _and_ the exilia!"

Gareth pursed his lips, coffee still in hand. He turned to Finn seated next to him. "Pay up."

Finn passed him a few golden coins, the thousand Varis ones.

"I bet you'd look for a way to bypass the normal progression," Gareth said.

"And I bet you'd ignore it and keep killing lower level monsters to build up your stats," Finn said.

"And Riveria?"

"We didn't accept something stupid as the condition," Gareth said. "Too broad."

"Fair." I nodded. "So, how about it?"

Gareth stroked his beard. "If you come down to the lower floors without the fear of death, then the fights you pick won't have any meaning to them and would instead reduce the exilia you gain."

"It's worth the trade I believe, and you shouldn't save me outright. I'll have to run away with my own power first, I understand the safety net would hamper the benefits, but at least the status gain would be much higher than what I get now."

Finn nodded. "Logical, but it's for the best you at least go through the first ten floors first. The most important part there is for you to experience the different status effects the lower monsters can inflict so you can qualify for Abnormal Status Resistance. It's an indispensable ability for the lower floors."

"Those monsters err, spread powders or some gasses? Or maybe exude fluids?"

"Yes," Finn said, surprised. "Good guess."

"How lethal are they?"

"Why don't I like where this is going?" Gareth said.

"I have an idea." If it wasn't immediately lethal then this could work much better than I first thought. "So, how lethal are we talking about?"

Finn scratched his cheek. "The poison moth has a chance to poison if you get covered by its scales."

"And what if you inhale it?"

"I'm really not liking where this is going."

"It's still a chance to get poisoned," Finn said with narrowed eyes. He paused. "Thomas, no."

"Thomas, yes."

The two stared at me long and hard before finally giving in. "But we're taking an antidote with us and that's final," Gareth added. "No getting over it on your own or any of that."

"Excellent. Also, there should be something like a boss monster, right?"

Gareth just shook his head and Finn face palmed. "I swear he's worse than Aiz," Gareth said.

"At least he's not mindlessly trying to kill himself."

"That's _exactly_ the problem."

"So, which floor can I meet one? If all goes well, I think soloing it would be another good way to grind. And if I can kill it, I'm sure it'll drop a lot of good stuff."

Gareth and Finn had on difficult looks. "If Aiz heard that," Gareth said with a shake of his head. "Nay, I'd rather believe she didn't."

"Soloing a monster rex isn't impossible, just really really stupid. You'd have to be either really strong or really stupid to even attempt it."

"It ain't stupid if you win."

"You're not wrong," Finn said.

"I really hate it when he's spot on," Gareth said.

"I was also thinking of learning to use a great sword. Or something with a large enough attacking area but still light enough to maneuver easily. I'm not too confident with using an axe because of the concentrated striking area, and a spear I believe wouldn't be able to take as much abuse as a solid blade." If I could get something along the lines of a Monster Hunter greatsword then I'd be set. If I had that, all I had to do was bump up my strength and agility and I should already be able to take care of a lot of things. It'd be shit in smaller areas though. But definitely something for boss fights in the future.

"You've got a good head Thomas, but you use it for a lot of stupid things," Gareth said. "Getting a bigger sword is the only thing I agree with. We can have Tsubaki craft you a custom weapon if you want, but it'll cost us a bit of money. That short sword of yours costed us a million Varis before."

I held up the blade with reverence. "No wonder it's such a good blade."

"Aye, it is." Gareth looked at it with fondness.

"Fun times," Finn said.

#

We then picked up the potions I'd need for my experiment by the Dian Cecht pharmacy and put in order with Tsubaki for a great sword. In the meantime, Gareth lent me one of his older ones from the vault. Again, it looked like a weapon too much for a level one, but I wasn't gonna be picky. A plus fifty to attack was way better than a plus five, but if that affected status growth then it'd suck big time. Thanks to the status and my improved strength, the two-handed sword that was as tall as I was I could swing and lift with some effort. It was a thin blade no wider than my palm, just enough mass to generate force with, and light enough to not get in the way too much.

Gareth showed me a few practice swings and made sure I could copy them to some extent before we went down into the Dungeon. My load out then had me mounting the shield on my back and the short sword by the small of my back, while the knife was hidden in my left vambrace. I could switch out the great sword for the shield and take out the short sword, and I could drop whatever I was holding to take out my knife and go for the ground fight. Gareth listened to the explanation with an uneasy look but couldn't deny the logic, so he begrudgingly accepted my dropping the expensive equipment when the need arose.

Today it was just me, Gareth, and Riine, and we went straight for the seventh floor to pick up a poison moth.

"Yeah, you heard right. Pick up a poison moth."

Riine looked at Gareth who rolled his eyes. "This is why we need your healing magic."

"I'm holding onto a coil of rope," Riine said. "Please tell me this isn't for what I think it's for."

I unsheathed the great sword and felt its reassuring weight. The double-edged blade meant I couldn't mount it on my shoulder and carry it like Cloud would, and I was sure I didn't want the sword's edge any closer to my neck than when it was sheathed. "Adventure!"

The seventh floor spawned three staple monsters: the Killer Ant, the Poison Moth, and the Needle Rabbit. There was also the Blue Papilio but that was a bonus because the powder from its wings was used for healing potions. It wasn't long until we met all three in the same encounter. There were three ants, two rabbits, and two moths.

"Thomas," Gareth said, "the ants attract more ants the longer they stay alive."

"Really?"

"That's a bad idea and I'm stopping you right now," Gareth said.

"Thank you, Gareth," Riine said.

I charged towards the group with the sword held high—and got an ant tackle me into the ground. I quickly rolled away on my side, the bumping of the shield against the Dungeon floor jolting me with every revolution. I then stood and ran away from them with the rabbits snapping—padding after my heels. I looked back, and they lunged for me with their horns and I jumped sideways to dodge before sheathing the great sword and taking out the short sword and shield.

I charged for the rabbits with shield at the ready and bashed one into the ground before stomping its body down. The second rabbit fell not long after. The ants were relatively slow, and I could save them for later—though the three ants were now five. The poison moth however just kept hovering above me and I never bothered to kill it, choosing instead to tank the poison powder. If the poison wasn't as bad after all, then I was planning on going through this entire raid in a poisoned state. That was bound to net something good.

"Gareth! Riine! Let's keep running! I'll kill off the monsters in one sweep!"

"I knew this was gonna happen!" Gareth said, running way faster than his frame suggested. He was a level six so none of this would've bothered him. "You might end up killing someone if you keep this up!"

"Good point." I then fall back and sliced the abdomen off one ant and dragged it behind me, catching up to Riine and Gareth.

"This isn't any better," Gareth said.

"But they're bound to follow whichever monster is calling for help right?" I sheathed the short sword and took out my knife before jamming it into the dismembered insect. "Viola!" The creature squirmed and snapped its mandibles while it let out a blood curdling screech.

"Thomas can be pretty cruel," Riine said.

"And downright stupid," Gareth added.

We kept running all the way until the stairs to the eight-floor after which I threw myself into the horde of monsters chasing after us.

" _Madness_ ," I called, and shrouded my entire body with the magic and immediately the snaps and tackles weren't as horrible, and I was able to cut swathes through their ranks, ignoring what they dished out and instead focused on swinging the great sword left and right, reaping lives with each pass.

The ants' mandibles couldn't pierce through the jacket, and the greaves were enough to block their attacks at my legs. The few ones that managed to snag my thighs were mitigated by the magic weakening them, smarting like a bitch but not enough to break flesh. The rabbits also kept pelting my body and everywhere hurt. I furthered the consumption of Despair and kept swinging back and forth, spinning and slashing with the blade and just letting its weight do the hurting.

I never bothered killing the poison moths and now that breathing was becoming harder and harder, it was the perfect time for my new spell. However, it was also a prime opportunity for another experiment. I felt for that weight and lifted it up, letting the magic swell. I stopped Despair before saying, " _Taken from the peace of home. I now stand beyond the veil. The aberrant demands reparation_."

Black light exploded from my body and the monsters around me crumbled to dust, leaving nothing behind. Okay, losing out on collecting stones wasn't all that horrible, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth to not come back with any cash. With the immediate area around me cleared of monsters, I was able to take better stock of the situation.

Monsters as far as the eye could see kept swarming, the ones left alive with my reckless swinging calling forth more and more ants.

My head cleared up after receiving the life force from Saudade's drain and I was able to come back swinging for the healthier ants. I could just finish off the wounded ones after taking care of the immediate threats. The rabbits I stomped and swiped at with Despair, after which they barely registered as threats. The moths kept on coming, and this vicious cycle of me dismembering the ants then using Saudade to recover kept on repeating for a few good minutes before the horde thinned out enough for me to finish the fight.

When the last ant died, the flock of purple moths stayed afloat above me without a care.

Riine already had the Abnormal Status Resistance skill so she helped me carve up the monsters' stones. But even she felt weird with leaving all those monsters alive to fly above us and spread their poison as we worked. Whenever I felt the poison take hold, I'd cast Saudade a few steps away from the monster corpses, so I didn't drain the magic stones too.

We finished collecting the stones a few minutes later and there was enough there to fill a small bag with magic crystals, killer ant shells, purple moth wings, and needle rabbit furs. Gareth said we could sell the materials over to Tsubaki so my order for a great sword wouldn't cost as much. We then caught the last purple moth I kept alive and tied its body to my helmet wing-side down, this was so it couldn't bite at my head.

"I think the seventh floor is my new favorite place."

"I swear, Thomas, you'll end up killing your fellow level ones," Gareth said.

"Gareth," Riine said, "I don't think Thomas still counts."

"Aye."

The eighth floor only contained goblins and kobolds and they weren't even worth mentioning, the ninth floor was like that too, but they spawned faster. Sure, they hit harder, but the ants were harder to fight because of how short they were, and their spawn rates were faster than the ninth floor. Needle rabbits and poison moths further complicated things too, which made me evaluate the seventh floor to be better.

On reaching the tenth floor, the usual halls gave way to a dense forest of stone trees and a heavy sea of mist, the ceiling was high enough to not be seen and the geometry of it made no sense at all. The space we ran around in in the ninth floor was nowhere near like what the space below implied. Yes, magic probably ran weird things with the Dungeon's dimensions, but there was also the possibility that the Dungeon wasn't governed by Euclidean math.

"Here's where you get your first look at a large monster," Gareth said. "The orcs here are the first you'll encounter in the Dungeon. You should do just fine, but don't let down your guard for a second."

I nodded and ventured into the mists. Gareth and Riine stayed back while I readied the great sword. The ant massacre earlier was made possible by the large weapon, and despite it being so large and awkward, I couldn't dispute its reach. A few moments later and the star of the show made its way to the front—an orc easily twice as tall as me and five times as wide appeared from the shadows beyond the mist. It was a pale green humanoid pig with a bell-like body and comically small arms.

It squealed and walked up to a tree, then pulled it out as its tendril-like branches straightened out to become a large club.

"Gareth?" I pointed at it. "It's got a stick."

"That's called a landform weapon," he said.

"Is it worth anything?"

Gareth grumbled. "Only the ones from the deeper floors."

"Damn."

"Focus, Thomas!"

I sidestepped the club crashing down for my head and slashed upwards at the orc, opening up its belly. It fell a second later. "That wasn't so bad!"

The next few orcs came but they were too slow to put up a fight, and they fell as fast as they appeared. With a single swing, I killed each one. I didn't even get a chance to use either Despair or Saudade.

"Onwards to the eleventh floor!"

"You haven't even seen the Imps and Bat Pats yet," Gareth said.

"Eh, the spawn rate sucks here. The gold efficiency is crap."

"What?"

"It's not worth the effort."

"Fine," Gareth said. Riine comforted him with a back rub.

We moved on and went down, and the eleventh floor was the same as the tenth save for the trees. They were sparser but larger here, and just as soon as I touched the floor an orc made its way towards me with a larger club than upstairs. I spun into its swing and avoided the strike and delivered another upward slash, ending it. I then had to bend back to avoid another club coming from me horizontally before retaliating with a downward slash that split it from the head down.

More orcs came not a second later bringing with them these spinning yellow dog-like things with overlapping plates. They came at me rolling and I had to roll away myself just to dodge them. Out of curiosity, I took a swing at the charging creature and cleaved it in two.

"This sword is bullshit!"

"Call the kettle black!" Gareth said.

I rolled away from an orc's swing and took two down in return. " _Madness_ ," I called, and wrapped myself with my magic as insurance. It was a mechanical method, side step when a club came from overhead, roll back if the club came from the side, counter attack if a hard armored came rolling, and swing whenever I had the time. The orcs' large bodies made them large targets, and much easier to kill with the reach. My short sword could've been of use in some other context, but it was easiest to do it with this.

Another orc fell, and I rolled back to avoid the sweep. A hard armored came rolling and I recovered into a sweep of the blade to the side, bisecting it before riding the swords momentum to roll to the side and stand. What's nice with the eleventh floor was how large the place was, and as long as I kept mobile and only counterattacking to take out the monsters, then I could avoid them outflanking me.

The air whistled from behind me, so I dove forward to avoid the club from behind. My magic shroud also made me more sensitive to movements nearby, perhaps by heightening my senses or by some other way. I'd test out why later, for now it was a pleasant advantage.

There were around ten or so orcs in front and charging with the hard armored spawns dying as soon as they entered the battle. It was a bit disappointing with how mindless the dog-things were. I swung my blade wide as I skirted the horde and wounded one and killed another with the swing. It got easier to wield the blade the more I used it, perhaps due to my strength stat increasing as we went?

Running around to bunch up the mobs and take them out piecewise was the thing we called the Shark Tactic in the Megaman Legends series. The mob a.i.s were so simplistic before that the lesser mobs followed a singular behavior of must be close enough to attack. It was easily exploited by running around but was only effective in large rooms.

Here wasn't any different, since that game also had a sword weapon if you felt like going Zero. Actually, a magic sword sounds like an awesome thing right about now, maybe Gareth would know more, and if not him then Tsubaki.

The horde thinned out until only two were left, so I dropped the great sword and equipped my short sword and shield. I ran straight for them and waited with shield at the ready, then took a swing straight for my head with it.

It brought me to my knees.

"Holy shit!" It was a good thing I didn't get hit by those earlier.

"Thomas!" Riine said.

"He does that all the time," Gareth said.

I shook off the shock and checked the shield out, and at least it didn't get too bent out of shape. I then rushed the two orcs and bashed one in the nards with the shield and disemboweled the other with the sword before rolling out of the way. The one I hit was unfazed. No genitals then. It fell a moment later when I stabbed it enough times.

Gareth and Riine walked over with the former carrying the sword. He passed me the blade after I put the short sword and shield away. "Make sure Tsubaki never finds out you do this," he said with a sigh.

"Eh?"

"She _really_ likes her weapons."

"I see." Noted.

Riine helped me gather the magic crystals and we filled another small bag like earlier with the occasional orc hide and hard armored shell. These materials weren't great, but with enough of them it was possible to refine enough adamantite for something respectable. We had lunch while waiting for the spawn rate to kick up again with Gareth so casually defending the campsite with his improvised orc weapon. He was swinging the first orc that came for him by its legs at the other orcs.

"How come I never thought of this before," Gareth said while shaking his head.

"When you consider it, all you really need to do is hit the monster as hard as you can with the least amount of risk to you."

"Aye," Gareth said. He then threw the orc so hard it just mowed a line through the coming horde and crushed a ton of trees in its way. That was what a level six could do when they were dicking around. And Ottar was a level seven.

I then took Gareth's place to meet the monsters and did the same Shark Tactic as before. Killing the group one monster at a time while making sure to keep my distance. The stones were much larger here, so the gold efficiency was much better, and the monsters were harder to kill since they needed more effort. Yes, they were slower, but the higher risk that came with their power made it more dangerous. What's good though was it didn't take as much magic as the swarms from the seventh floor.

The horde thinned out and me and Riine started cleaning up the stones and drops. We were getting such a good haul, but this was still nothing compared to what the familia made on their deeper excavations.

"Twenty-six more days feels like such a long time."

"It's not," Gareth said, "and you'd be surprised at how fast it comes."

"It's just been four days," Riine said, "and yet I'm back in the dungeon again." She sighed. "Its better than the lower floors though. There, _everything_ is out to get you."

"That bad?"

Riine nodded. "After the thirteenth floor, these holes open up in the Dungeon that force you to the lower floors."

"Really?"

"Thomas," Gareth said. "Those are not shortcuts."

"Sure they are."

"Wait, no," Riine said. "Those deposit you into a monster party if you're lucky, and deeper if you're not." She frowned. "And it's not unheard of for trap chutes to be next to one another."

"If you survive the drops, then you cut a lot of time off your travel."

" _If_ you survive," Gareth said.

"So, how durable is a level one's body?"

"We're not doing this Thomas," Gareth said, and moved on for the stairs. "Ask Finn later."

"Oh, spoil my fun."

The twelfth floor was similar to the eleventh floor, but the mists now reached as high as my shoulder. Visibility was shit with barely any light reaching the ceiling, and the bright glow of the ground made the place look like a sea of smoke. It was only thanks to the mists that I saw the fist coming for me in time to give my shoulder instead of my head.

I flew into a tree and got the wind knocked out of me.

"Thomas!" Gareth said. "Look alive!"

"I know!" I rolled away with great sword at the ready. Fluid dripped down my helmet. I touched it. It was green and smelled like dead bug. Oh, yeah. I quickly removed the dead moth off my helmet and took its stone and was relieved of the horrible stench.

"Silverbacks move fast, stay on your toes!" Riine said.

I had to roll out of the way as the mists parted. Damn. "I can't see them!"

"They have white fur!" Gareth said.

"Well shit!" No fucking wonder! Everywhere else was too dim and the lit up floor made everything else look white. Not even shadows showed up properly because the light came from the ground.

I sheathed the great sword and switched it for the short sword and shield. " _Madness_ ," I called, and wrapped myself with my magic.

The mists coiled. I put my shield up and out came a large greyish fist. I blocked it and wasn't pushed as hard, but still enough to make my boots skid back along the ground. Its silhouette came into view and raised two arms before crashing them down like hammers.

I dodged but was swept by one of its arms and crashed into another tree. Pain shot through my sides when I breathed in, and I might've cracked a rib. I called on my magic and let it swell, before dispelling Despair. " _Taken from the peace of home_." I blocked the fist at an angle and jumped back. " _I now stand beyond the veil._ " I put up the shield and ran into the same direction. " _The aberrant demands reparation._ "

Black light exploded from my body and I felt the trickle of power from the spell.

"Shit." I met that fist again and was thrown back. " _Madness!_ " I gathered the magic into my blade and charged. The fist came once more but this time instead of block or dodging I stepped into it with my sword forward. The blade touched the fur and cut where it passed but the arm kept going. That's when I saw what it belonged to: a large gorilla way bigger than the orc and ensnared by Despair.

Fuck. Going for the shield was a terrible idea. This damned thing was smart enough to hide in the mists and use hit and run tactics. I was bound to lose if I kept this up. I sheathed my short sword before dodging its punch by going forward. " _Taken from the peace of home_." It brought both hands up and crashed them down, and I dodged to the immediate right with a roll. " _I now stand beyond the veil_." I recovered by pulling the great sword from the harness. " _The aberrant demands reparation_." My magic reached out just as I replaced my shield.

The silverback jumped away, the black wave only catching its leg.

I sprinted after it with sword at the ready. " _Madness!_ " I called before slashing at it and caught the beast by the thigh.

The gorilla turned back, one hand clutched at its leg. It looked at me with blood red eyes. Right now, the only big thing in my mind was how I wasn't dead yet with a horde of these coming for me. Hopefully, Gareth and Riine were keeping the others from getting to me. This thing was completely different from everything else on the higher floors.

I really should've stuck to the great sword.

The gorilla charged and punched when he neared. I answered its attack with a chop from the side and crushed some of its fingers, but the sword was flung from my hands. Fuck. I weaved back just enough to avoid its back hand and unsheathed the short sword into a reversed slash. I wounded its arm, but it barely bled. It stopped long enough for me to run back to the other sword.

I picked it up and charged back in.

The silverback swept its good arm and I slashed at it. But had to dodge its bad arm thrown like a whip with a big jump.

I got smashed into the ground and bounced away. I couldn't take much more of this, not for longer. I needed to win. "Dammit!" I threw away the great sword and got the shorter one in one hand and took my knife in the other. Slashing at it wasn't getting me anywhere, whether its hide was too strong, or I was too weak didn't matter, and stabbing it with the clumsy weapon was just asking for a beating. It was time to get up close and personal.

"Your ass is grass!" I ran for the monkey without a care for defense, the two blades held in reverse.

The silverback brought its hands up and still I ran straight. It clapped its hands, but I jumped towards its good arm and got to its flank. It tried to jump away but I dove for its body with my blades pointed into its flesh.

My short sword caught in its other thigh and I was bodily dragged over. It moved to crush me, but I stabbed in with my knife to pull me closer to its body, barely avoiding the blow that would've caved my head in.

The silverback scrambled for a hold on my body but I kept stabbing and pulling at it, moving myself away just enough to avoid, stabbing and opening holes up in it with each stab. It then rolled over to drive me off but here in the ground was where I knew best to move. All those ground-fighting drills I had to put up with with Robert taught me enough how to feel for my opponent, and a titanic monkey was no better than a human. Muscles pulled before anything else, and it was these impulses I relied on to keep my relentless attack going.

We rolled around along the ground with the ape screaming all manners of horrible.

I stabbed it in the back, in its legs, in its arms, and it'd get lucky elbowing me at times or catching me on the ground. But it was the one bleeding out, and I still had my magic. " _Taken from the peace of home._ " I moved out of the way when it jumped into the ground. _"I now stand beyond the veil._ " The monkey ran backwards into a tree, and I pulled myself away with a stab to its rib. _"The aberrant demands reparation_."

My black light exploded. The monster disintegrated.

I landed on my face.

#

When I came to, Gareth was carrying me on his back.

"Glad to have you back, Thomas," he said. Riine was in front with my short sword and beating back the orcs and hard armoreds without killing any of them. "We brought you back to the eleventh floor, figured you'd rather use your magic to heal. It saves us using a potion too."

He let me off and I saw he had the great sword strapped to his back. "Thank you, Gareth." He passed me the sword.

"Let's talk about going back up after."

I joined Riine who nodded back. I let my magic swell as I said the spell words, " _Taken from the peace of home. I now stand beyond the veil_." I gestured for Riine to get away as I dove into the horde. " _The aberrant demands reparation_."

The black light swallowed the orcs and hard armoreds, leaving only a couple of hides and three shells behind. I also felt so much better after my spell that the pain in my sides seemed more like a memory now than something I just got a few minutes ago. I jogged back to the two.

"That hit the spot."

He nodded and Riine smiled back. "How was the twelfth floor?" Gareth said.

"Do silverbacks come in hordes like that?"

"Aye," Gareth said, "a lot of adventurers power through the twelfth floor and prefer the thirteenth onwards."

"I see."

"We should get back to the manor," he added. "Your magic heals you, but its best to have you checked to be sure."

It wasn't really up for discussion and I wasn't about to complain either. The pain was gone, but there was still some lingering weakness from having been in pain for so long. It was best to concede for now, the haul before we met the silverback was already pretty good. And I was making good progress if I could take that many hits from that gorilla and live to complain about it.

We went to the guild first to exchange our crystals and got a whopping forty-six thousand Varis and change, then dropped off my monster loot at Tsubaki's. She didn't ask any questions, only to see my knife and other weapons to sharpen them. She also asked me to leave my shield behind so she could work on it. Before we left, I also asked for a quote to have a war hammer made.

That last fight with the silverback made me reconsider my choice of fighting with a great sword. I was fighting monsters with a weapon made to fight humans. If I were that concerned with the off chance of fighting a person, then it was easier to carry the short sword like I was doing now. I described to her a small war hammer with one side blunt and the other ending with a pick-like point. The blunt side was for breaking, and the pick was for stabbing. I could also use them to hook at or into flesh with enough force.

When we finished the discussion, Gareth stood there shaking his head while Tsubaki shook my hand repeatedly, thankful for the insight. Turns out the blacksmiths were given these divine designs from the gods and that was why swords and axes became the norm for adventurers. Riine had a difficult expression on, and called the weapon vicious, but Tsubaki corrected her saying it was genius.

We said our goodbyes after and passed by the Dian Cecht pharmacy. The clinic was on the second floor and Dian Cecht himself signed off on a clean bill of health for me. Though he did say I should go out more in the sunlight.

Baffled but satisfied, Gareth led the way back home with the sun still up.

#

When we got back, Loki dragged me into her room, and Gareth was only too happy to sic her on me.

She had me lying on her bed with my shirt off and her on top of me faster than I could say time out. I wanted to at least shower first but she wouldn't have any of it. With each stroke she twitched before sinking her nails deeper into my back.

"You dragged a killer ant all the way from the start of the seventh floor to the stairs and threw yourself at the lot of them. That's normally called a pass parade if you're doing it to screw someone else over but you did it to yourself!" Loki screeched. "And what is up with this absurd magic healing you and restoring mana! This darn thing's just enabling your idiocies!"

Her hands danced and pinched my sides, and I was deeply thankful for the wonders of an enhanced endurance stat.

"And who the hell goes one on one against a twelfth floor monster?!" She slapped the paper against my back and made me stand. "You just got here five days ago! Five!"

"Gareth had the same reaction."

"No duh, Tom."

#

 **Level 1**

Strength = I 47 - H 117

Endurance = I 60 - H 140

Dexterity = I 88 - G 205

Agility = I 38 - I 87

Magic = I 117 - G 257

Madness Spectrum = I

Tranquil Intervention = I

World Walker = I

Fated Actor = I

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Madness"

Saudade = An area of effect drain spell that takes the magic and life force contained in all within range and transfers it to the user. Targets stronger than the user are able to resist having their magic and life stolen. Has a five-meter radius, and a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Taken from the peace of home / I now stand beyond the veil / The aberrant demands reparation"

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

#

"I want to bite you," she said before clutching her head. "I also want to keep you safe but you're just going and getting your ass handed to you in ways you devised yourself!" She gestured at her head. "You tied a poison moth to your head." She stopped pacing. "That was honestly funny—and smart." She chuckled, then shook her head. "Wait, I'm supposed to be mad at you!"

I moved to hug her, but Loki dodged. "And you smell like crap," she said, holding onto her nose. "Go and take a bath already!"

"But you wanted me to—"

She stopped me from talking and kicked me out of her room, throwing her covers at my topless self. "And get those washed too!"

How timely was it that Tione just had to see? "Got kicked out of bed?" she asked with a smirk.

"I went into the wrong hole."

She hit her head on the wall. "Why do I keep talking to you?!"

"You walked into that one, Tione."

She then forcibly calmed herself down. "The laundry room is in the second floor," she said with a forced smile.

"Thanks, Tione!" I then went on my way—but not before I _dropped_ my status sheet.

I hid behind the hall and waited.

Tione screamed.

Damn, I should've baited her with a bet.

I went down the stairs and saw Narvi on laundry duty. I promised her some cake as I dropped off Loki's stuff for her and went up to the fourth floor to my room. I took a quick shower and got dressed in a spare set of clothes I borrowed from Raul. With the sun still up, it was a good time to go shopping for some stuff I'd need like extra clothes and dungeon gear. Soap and shampoo, maybe a magic tool if I could afford one just for the sheer novelty of it.

With a heavy purse, I went down to the living room to see who could show me around.

The only one there was Bete. He looked at me funny. "What do you want?"

I shrugged. "Someone to show me where the shops are, I still don't have any clothes of my own."

He tsked. "Ask someone else."

I shrugged—and saw Tiona. "Hey Tiona!" She turned. "You mind showing me around Orario? I need to buy a few things."

"Sure," she said, "I wasn't doing anything anyway." She grinned. "But you have to buy me food."

That's when Tione, Lefiya, Aiz, and Lefiya came down. "You ready to go?" Tione asked—then saw me.

"Let's take Thomas with us," Tiona said. "He needs clothes too."

No one really objected so I tagged along.

We visited various shops for women's clothes and the Amazoness specialty one had bikinis of all shapes and styles. The Elven clothes shop was all frilly and gothic, and it took a while for them to pick out something Aiz looked normal in. She eventually settled for a white dress with a purple skirt which Lefiya treated her to. After that was my stuff and I got some more tunics in assorted colors, and pants of the same kind I was already wearing.

I also got a sturdy pair of boots for dungeon diving and some loafers from the god's specialty shop that featured clothes from different countries and eras. It was a strange place, but the shoes and other shirts were good. I also got myself a few cotton t-shirts and some boxer shorts. If I'd known of this place before buying then I would've gotten all my stuff here, but alas, it probably would've been a bad idea.

Satisfied, we ended our shopping trip with a quick visit to this jagamarukun stall manned by Hestia. She was happily selling the stuff and who was I to think otherwise.

"It's the flat-lover!" she said, pointing at me. She then eyed our group and pointed at Tiona. "And you're probably two-timing too with that ironing board!"

"Err, goddess Hestia," I said, "we're only here for food."

She narrowed her eyes at me then gave Aiz the stink-eye. "You and Aiz-what's her name eh." She clicked her tongue. "Hurry up then, I don't have all day."

There was a lot of hostility from her but it was a mostly harmless thing. Freya was dangerous without even being pissed and this was a puppy in a stroller compared to that.

We bought some normal bacon and cheese flavored ones but Aiz got herself a green tea flavored one. These were spiced mashed potatoes and fried into a bun. That was just… so weird. I guess that's something she shared with Loki.

We then went back home and dinner came not long after, and the day ended just like that.


	5. Vol 1 Chapter 4

**Volume 1**

 **Chapter 4**

The morning started like any other save for a certain energy in the air.

I had the usual plate of goodies and looked for a free seat somewhere and eventually ended up with Bete, Riine, and Raul. Surprisingly, Bete had healthy eating habits. He gave me the stink eye as I took sat down.

"Good morning, Thomas," Riine said.

"Good morning to you too."

Raul nodded at me and I smiled back.

Bete, well, he just stared then went back to his food.

"Oh, Thomas," Riine said, "are you planning on taking Loki to the Monster Feria?"

That was a shit name. "Is it some sort of festival?" I had a spoonful of mushroom soup as I broke my toast.

Riine nodded, putting away her spoonful of corn. "The Ganesha familia will be holding their usual show."

I just looked at her but then Bete spoke up. "Just a bunch of no goods taming monsters by beating them senseless."

Riine stared at Bete before turning back to me. "On second thought, please don't go."

Bete looked at her with a blank expression. "What are you yapping on about?"

"You've never spent time with Thomas yet, have you?"

Raul nodded at Riine's statement.

"How come everyone does that?" I took a bite out of my pancakes.

Bete tilted his head at me, his fluffy silver ears twitching. "What the hell _have_ you been up to?"

"Nothing special."

"Nothing special, he says," Riine said with a flat stare.

That was when Loki joined us with Aiz in tow. Riine looked at her expectantly. "Thomas," Loki said, "go down to the dungeon and grind. Slackers don't get to do fun stuff."

Riine raised her hand. "I think he actually enjoys going down into the dungeon."

Huh, now that I thought about it, did I? I mean, where else did I get to cut loose and indiscriminately destroy other supposedly living beings without any repercussions for my actions? And in fact, even be rewarded for them. There was also using magic like some hero—even if my spells were so edgy—and even use swords! Though okay, it made more sense to use more practical stuff for those massacres—I mean raids.

"See!" Riine said. "That's the face he makes when he's about to do something stupid!"

I frowned at her. "I was born with this face."

Rin was about to say something, but she instead crossed her arms and puffed up her cheeks.

"Thomas," Loki said. She lightly chopped at my head. "Stop teasing the normies."

"I could do so much worse."

Riine clawed at me like a spooked cat and Anakity who just now sat next to her gave the girl a disapproving look. The latter stuck her tongue out and the former pinched her nose for it. "Stop appropriating my culture."

Did she just… I looked at Loki. "Did you teach her that?"

"Damn right I did."

"Heh, nice."

"Weirdos," Bete said. He scooted closer to Aiz.

I looked at Loki and raised a brow at her. She nodded back with a wide grin.

Bete leaned close to us. "What did you two just agree on?"

"Whether you had a chance or not," Loki said.

I gave his hand a pat. "There there, Bete."

He sneered and pulled his hand away. "Don't touch me."

"So uncute," Loki said. "If you keep that up, a certain _someone_ won't even consider you."

I wagged a finger at him. "You should listen to a lady who knows what she wants."

"Tsk."

Riine looked between the three of us. "Umm," she said.

Bete glared at her.

She rolled her eyes before focusing on Loki. "Do I still need to support Thomas?" she said. "I'd prefer going to the festival than watch him bathe in monster blood."

"What," Bete said with a sneer.

"It's good for your skin."

"No way," Anakity said with shock. She turned to Riine with a grave expression. "Please tell me he's joking."

"I'm joking."

The cat lady let out a big breath. Loki shook her head at me. "Thomas, if you say something like that, don't take it back at least until _after_ someone does something stupid."

"I do enough of it on a daily basis."

"He's not wrong," Riine said, dejected.

"And I'm the one who gets to see all of that through his eyes," Loki said with a sigh. Riine gave her a back rub.

I stopped stuffing my face for a beat. "Weren't we teasing Bete?"

The guy smiled something cocky. "I'm not the biggest idiot here."

Everyone on the table and Aiz looked at him for a good long while.

"I hate all of you!" he said as stormed out of the mess hall.

"Tomato comment?" I asked.

"Tomato comment," Aiz answered.

"Ah, that poor idiot."

"I heard that!" Bete said from the living room.

Loki clapped her hands. "I'll be spending the day with Aiz," she declared. The girl didn't look too enthused. "Thomas, I need you ready for the expedition so grind as if your life depended on it."

I rolled my eyes at her.

"But nothing too crazy." She narrowed her eyes at me. "Are we clear on that?"

"I do not speak for the stats."

"No Thomas, we do not have anything like a stat-whisperer or a Falna-lorax thing here. Bad, bad references."

"What are they even doing?" Anakity whispered at Riine.

"I think that's how they flirt," Riine said. They were still within normal speaking volume though.

Aiz just kept eating her food without a worry.

Tione and Tiona squeezed into the already filled table, the former sitting next to Riine and Raul, the latter to my left. Tiona poked my cheek with a finger.

"Loki, you should let him cut loose a bit," she said.

Loki chuckled. "Him?"

"Guys, I'm right here."

"We're mostly women?" Riine said.

"It's unisex, refers to Guy Fawk—" I pinched the bridge of my nose. It wasn't even a proven etymology anyway. "Sorry, I meant"—I made air quotes—"I'm right here, everyone."

Loki continued. "He's a Virgo, he likes having something to do so he doesn't have to think."

"I didn't think you'd know astrology."

"What's a Virgo?" Riine asked.

"It's a really wonderful kind of person."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Knowing you," she said.

Cruz passed by to give Anakity a package, and Rakta dragged Raul away so they could put in those new orders for weapons with the Hephaestus familia. His seat was then taken by Riveria who had a salad. Really, what else did I expect.

"A lively breakfast table is nice," she said. She bit into a ripe and juicy tomato.

"Riveria," Loki said, "any news on _those_ things?"

The elf shook her head. "Still none."

The two of them sighed. Loki rested her head on my shoulder. "What a bother."

"Is this about my magic?"

Aiz perked up when she heard about my magic. Loki nodded. Riveria stopped sipping her tea.

"Thomas has magic?" Anakity asked.

"It's this really dark and edgy thing," Loki said.

I clutched my head in agony, it was bad enough I had to chant for it, but good god those names!

"Is Thomas alright?" Riine said.

Loki smirked. "Don't mind him, he's just suffering an existential crisis."

"Thomas hails from a long line of mages," Riveria said. "One of his ancestral spells showed up when he last updated."

"Ah," Anakity accepted the explanation. "Must be nice to have magic."

"It'd be better if they chantless magics," I said, utterly defeated.

"But your chants are cool," Riine said with sparkling eyes. "Taken from the peace of home…"

Oh god make it stop. Loki was full on cackling. Riine stopped, more out of concern for what she inadvertently caused than any actual consideration for my suffering. It killed her enthusiasm, and it was a complex feeling to be relieved at her displeasure.

"Good job," Aiz said.

"Ohhh?!" Loki said. "You should be honored Tom!"

I sprinkled confetti above me.

Everyone in the table and from the others nearby stopped talking, but Aiz started giggling.

Riveria was shaking her head. "How long did you wait to use that?"

"Since I came down from my room."

#

Gareth eventually picked me up to get on with our morning. He wasn't fan of beating monsters into submission since he already did so on a regular basis, he also didn't appreciate the idea of using violence as a pretense for cooperation. A monster was a monster. And no amount of training could change that, if it so wanted, it could turn on its handler at the drop of a hat. We then went out of the manor and joined in with the tide of people.

It was a festive time, but the mission took precedence. Also, I was sure monster taming had a bad return on investment. The tamed monsters still had that limitation of dying when their crystals were destroyed so as long as that glaring weakness was there, the monster was still mostly useless. There was also the fact that evolving a monster that ran the risk of betraying you was a horrible idea. And unless they had magic collars than ensured absolute obedience, this was a fanciful hobby at best.

However, before going to the Dungeon, Gareth and I had to pick up the stuff we had Tsubaki repair and make for me.

Orario's streets were crowded to the point of bursting with all the people headed for the coliseum.

Every other street corner and square had lines of customers waiting to buy the different food stuffs from the stalls put up overnight. Colored banners and flags crisscrossed the spaces between the buildings while flowers and petals littered the streets. It was a festival just like any other, and thanks to Gareth's fame, we didn't have to wade through the tide just to get to the smiths'.

We also picked up some grilled squid of all things just before getting there.

"There's a sea near Orario?"

"Aye," he said, "the city of Melen is just a few kilometers South West of here so seafood comes fresh daily. We should check it out after the expedition passes, I know of a good place for grilled dishes."

"Looking forward to it then."

"So how's life in Orario so far, Tom?" he said. "Do you mind if I call you Tom?"

"Go ahead, Loki uses it around everyone anyway. And life's been nice, my room here is much nicer than the one I had back home."

Gareth smiled. "Aye, good to hear lad." He stroked his beard. "You mind telling me of your home?"

I shrugged. "I'm warning you now, it might sound like I'm making it up, but I swear everything I say next is true."

"Try me," Gareth said with a smirk.

"For one there's only humans in my world, there are no elves or dwarves or beastkin or monsters."

"That last one sounds lovely," he said. "Don't know about not having dwarves or beastkin though."

"We get by," I said. "And the Babel tower." Gareth hummed. "Back home, that building wouldn't be one of the tallest ones."

"Oho?" He smiled wide at that.

"Yeah"—I reached my hands up to the sky—"we have these buildings we call skyscrapers that were made to reach the clouds." Uhh, how tall were they usually… "They usually have between forty and sixty floors, and the really tall ones go up to seventy." I had no fucking clue but I couldn't cop out now. "Their purposes were rather stupid though."

"And why's that?"

"Because most of them were things we did just because we could," I said. "We didn't have magic back home to reinforce our structures or help make our lives easier. Everything we enjoyed we had to build from scratch with the power of knowledge and teaching."

"It's a way to live," Gareth said.

"Innovation was the real power of humanity back home," I said. "When we get back later, remind me to show you something." If only Loki would let go of my phone and headphones for a while.

"Sure," he said.

"But we weren't always the best."

"I figured you'd keep praising your home."

I chuckled. "It's far from perfect, but it's still something. Our knowledge was amazing, but that knowledge was also filled with less than savory things like how best to kill another person, or how best to kill a lot of people from way over there without getting hurt yourself."

"Warfare is part of society, Tom. Even here it exists."

"I'm sorry to hear."

"Aye, but Ares is an idiot, so it ain't too bad." He chuckled. "You were saying?"

"Right, are you familiar with bombs?"

He nodded. "Nasty things, small but pack a lot of boom. Expensive too."

"Do they work against monsters?"

Gareth shook his head. "Nay, but they're good for mining."

"Ah, so you have explosives for that, eh? That's also how we started using them. And I take it your explosives are made of this black powder stuff?"

He beamed. "Glad to see we share something common. Aye, dragon powder we call it, but yes, it's a black powder."

"Do you have other explosives?"

"Others?" He raised a brow, the beginnings of a smile behind them. "We only know of dragon powder so far, but I take it there are others?"

"Countless others," I said. "Remind me to make you some of them when I have the time."

"Is it common knowledge to know?" Gareth asked with a flat stare.

"Nope."

"Figures." He laughed. "I'd appreciate that then."

"And if we're lucky, we can get really rich really fast with it."

"Let's not."

I shrugged. "Well, the biggest explosives we have we call them nuclear bombs."

"What is this _nookleyarr_ you speak of?"

"It's a bit complicated to explain. But just one of those bombs would be enough to destroy the entirety of Orario and make the land too dangerous to live in for a long long time. The weapon destroys with the explosion and poisons the land, it's a sinister weapon we've only ever used twice in our long history of war." I shrugged. "It was a horrible weapon that killed in the hundreds of thousands in the span of a few minutes."

"I see," he said. "Your people were… ferocious, I take it?"

"You can say that, and remember those skyscrapers I told you about? Most of those were made for the purpose of commerce."

"Impressive," he said, "and you say your people have done all that without magic?" He nodded. "And I suppose you were a soldier or a fighter in your old home? Your movements are strange, but there is a reason with the attacks you make. You could also use your knife well, the buckler too. The swords though, not as much."

I shook my head. "Nah, I wasn't a fighter. I was a thinker for those who fought."

"Explain?"

"I was part of the team that decided how weapons would be best allocated and where in the battlefield." Or in the _area of conflict_ , as management was so strict to having us use. "I also helped check the movements of hostile groups and helped the commanders decide best where to move their soldiers or how to deal with a battle."

"That explains a few things then," Gareth said. "But not the stupid. Where does the stupid come from?"

I laughed at that. "Now this one you probably won't believe."

"I'm an old man and I've seen a _lot_ of things."

"Well, okay." I took a deep breath. "In my world, these things we call statuses and levels, skills and magics, these were things we could only find in games."

Gareth nodded.

"These numbers we use to give some sort of scale to these parameters we called strength, endurance, agility and so forth, they were usually able to be trained under specific circumstances to produce outcomes favorable to whoever was playing the game."

"And you've been applying ideas from these games of yours to here?"

"My knowledge hasn't failed me yet."

"And what happens if you died in those games?"

"Then your avatar died, and if the game's rules are a certain way, death may not be the end. Or it might be another state for your avatar and you could return to the living eventually. There were as many possibilities with games as there are stars in the sky. And no one rule existed to unite them all, except maybe the unwritten one that games were supposed to be enjoyed."

"And you've been enjoying your stay here?"

"That magic is here was already enough for me to have fun."

"Aye," he said, "that's good to hear."

#

We eventually reached Tsubaki's workshop.

Gareth knocked on the door. Something exploded. Smoked billowed out of the windows. This was getting old.

Tsubaki came out covered in soot and greeted the two of us with warm hugs. She was really touchy. "Glad of you to make it," she said.

"Tom here couldn't go about his business without them."

I totally could, but I was already used to those. "They're good pieces."

"Too good," Tsubaki said. She slung her arm around my shoulders. "I've got your items sorted out and ready. Come in!"

She herded us through the door and the same mess from yesterday was still there. There was no place to receive guests in her workshop, just a forging table, her forge, the anvil, and the gigantic piles of metals, ingots, ores, drop loots and other stuff I couldn't even identify. She also had a simple wooden table where my shield was, along with the hammer I asked for.

Our host gestured at the items. "Your descriptions and sketches were really interesting, so I might've gotten carried away," Tsubaki said. She picked up the war hammer. "It's a lot smaller than what I'm used to making." She pointed at one of the piles and lo and behold, there was a hammer there with a head about as large as an oil drum.

"Yeah, that doesn't work out for me."

Tsubaki gave me a pat on the shoulder. "With such skinny arms, I wouldn't have expected it either."

Gareth laughed.

"But this!" Tsubaki held the solid looking thing in one hand. "I had a lot of fun looking for a material dense enough for the head, and I also used metal for the body to _really_ make it sturdy." She stuck her tongue out. "And I might've unintentionally given it the Durandal property."

Gareth stopped laughing, and I narrowed my eyes at her. "I'm not paying for that." I didn't know what Durandal meant, but the level six wasn't too happy hearing about it.

"Ah, don't worry, I'm not charging you for that since I'm keeping it for myself. I just wanted to let you know." She picked up the shield and took the hammer it was hiding underneath. "This"—she passed me the hammer—"is yours."

The hammer had a hefty head about the size of a beer bottle with one flat end and the other tapering into a rounded point like Tsubaki's. The handle was a dark and dense wood and the part where the head and handle met was held together and reinforced by metal braces. All in all, it was about as long as my thigh, long enough for a good swing, but short enough to be useable a bit closer up. "It feels good."

Tsubaki preened. "It damn well should," she said. "That took me all night to figure out." She presented her own hammer. "Shaping the entire thing was easy, but it was the balance that ate up so much time. I originally didn't want to give you anything too overpowered but since Loki herself asked for it, I had to give it my all." She glared at Gareth.

He raised his hands. "It wasn't my idea."

"That great sword you're using." She looked at me. "I bet that's sliced a hard armored in two?"

I nodded.

"A too strong weapon in the hands of a novice would make them think they were strong when in fact it's the weapon that's strong." She walked up to me and held a flap of my jacket. "This jacket of yours is made with Bloodsaurus hide, so of course you'd be untouched by everything."

Okay, I knew Loki said to arm me to the teeth, but this was just overkill.

"Your armor pieces are also designed for deep floor exploration," she said, pointing at the vambraces and greaves. "I made those for Gareth when they just reached level thirty in the Dungeon, if I remember right."

Gareth nodded. "Aye," he said with a smile.

"The question then, is why Loki would want you equipped so handsomely?"

Gareth looked at me before nodding. "She was going to figure it out eventually."

Tsubaki huffed. "Because I don't believe in people relying on their tools to be strong."

"Thomas here has communication magic." He slapped me in the back.

Tsubaki slapped me in the back too, and this one literally took my breath away. "You lucky bastards!" she said with a boisterous laugh. "That changes everything."

I coughed as I received my shield and short sword. "Keep it secret? For a friend?"

"I can't promise about Hephaistos, but if you swear not to drop your things next time, I might consider it."

"I promise." I lied.

She shrugged. "More money for me anyway." She passed me the great sword Gareth lent me. "That other great sword you asked for, that one's going to take a while. Mythril's been harder to come by lately, so you'll have to make do with _that_ one for a while." She rolled her eye. "This harness you had me do was also good. Carrying too many weapons on your person would normally lead to more problems, but these straps you added to secure them to your thighs is a smart move."

I received the complicated piece of leatherwork, and with it, I would be able to mount my short sword on my left hip, the pick on my right hip, the great sword on my back, and the shield in front of my hip. And like she said, they included some extra straps to keep my hip mounted weapons attached to my thigh so they didn't get in the way when I rolled. I could also mount some knives by the sternum straps, and I bet Loki would find some way or another to get Aiz to wear one of these babies. "Nice."

"I'm just not sure I can recommend anyone to wear these," she said with a sigh. She shrugged. "The price for everything is one million and eight hundred thousand Varis, not including the other sword," Tsubaki said. "But I'll take off five hundred for teaching me to make the pick and harness." She held up her unbreakable pick. "You can pay it back later."

"Thank you Tsubaki," Gareth said. "We'll be sure to dump all of Thomas's drops off at your place from now on too."

"That'd be highly appreciated." She raised her eyebrow. "Also, you should get him some Salamander Wool soon, Gareth."

The dwarf crossed his arms. "He should get used to the silverbacks first."

She pouted. "No one likes the twelfth floor, Gareth. No one. And you're already fattening him up anyway, might as well go all the way if you're already half-way there."

Gareth shook his head. "He may be taking a shortcut, but it doesn't stop the fact he still needs to go through certain experiences. And besides," he said, "what I'm more worried about is him finding some way to half-kill himself just so he could heal up and do it all over again."

"Eh?"

"He tied a purple moth to his head."

Tsubaki rubbed her chin. "He didn't get poisoned?"

"Oh no, I screwed myself pretty thoroughly. I just had a way to heal myself."

"Smart," she said. "I should get my other familia members to do that."

"Don't encourage him!" Gareth scratched his chin. "It's also been difficult to tell if he enjoys getting hurt."

"If Loki likes him," Tsubaki supplied. She clapped me on the shoulder. "So, mind showing me how to use this thing?" She smiled something sinister.

#

That conversation did not at all go the way Gareth intended it to. But what happened after was the real icing on the cake. It started with Tsubaki picking out some random weapons she had in her workshop along with a sizeable bag. And eventually culminated in the three of us now running away from the parade of Killer Ants from the seventh floor.

"Don't you think this is too many, Thomas?" Tsubaki asked.

"Nonsense! It just means more money for us!"

"I really hate it when you say that," Gareth said.

An ant dropped down from the ceiling and I batted it away with the blunt end of the pick. Followed by a poison moth that flew towards my face but got bisected by the short sword. All this while, the two were following behind me in a line. Pulling the monsters was my idea, so I naturally had to deal with the implications of it too.

Another ant reared its head from a side path. My armored shin smashed it in the noggin as we kept going. We could hear their little legs and screeching right behind us, but that was because we were running just fast enough to keep them right behind. Tsubaki already said my gear was that damn good, might as well really see how well they performed.

The needle rabbits weren't even an issue anymore, they pelted my sides and back at times but as long as they didn't break flesh, then they were no threats. I soldiered through the pain, stomping them when I had the chance.

"Needle rabbit fur is good for light armor," Tsubaki said. "I know a certain someone who'd like a big order."

"Would it knock a few Varis off my bill?"

"Sure," she said.

We eventually reached the stairs to the eighth floor before I threw myself at the ants.

"Is this that thing you were telling me about?" I heard Tsubaki ask.

I swung my pick pointy-end first at the first ant and easily pierced its shell. The bastard was still crawling though, but its sharp legs weren't as big a problem as its powerful jaws. The short sword in my left hand intercepted a needle rabbit in mid-air, and I spun into another swing with the pick blunt-end first at the next ant's torso.

The flat side kept the monsters at a distance while the sharp end was for a decisive blow. I abandoned all pretenses of defense after finding out about the real bounds of my armor and went at an all-around massacre, throwing myself bodily at the monsters as each wave came. Whenever I opened enough space around me, I'd behead an ant and hook its body with the pick to throw it into the horde, hampering the others' advance.

With this, I eventually built up a sort of pile in front to funnel them. It was like a just as disturbing homage to what the Spartans did in three hundred except using monster carcasses in place of human bodies. That comparison didn't feel like a victory. Hugging a wall wasn't an option in the dungeon anyway since a monster could be born there and then, but at least I had a helmet on so surprise attacks weren't as big a concern if they came from the ceiling.

Gareth didn't mind Tsubaki seeing me fight, and neither did he hide anything from her. Whether it was a certain level of trust in a friend or in a business partner didn't matter. Gareth had Loki's confidence, and Tsubaki had Gareth's.

I pulled another ant in and stomped its head off before shoulder checking a needle rabbit and introducing it to my boots. As I fought, I made sure to keep on focusing on feeling my magic, moving it in concert with my swings. I also did it even outside the Dungeon, getting a feel for how it moved within and manifested with my spell words. My magic was growing faster than my other stats so if I could get something like a reinforcement buff for boosting my strength or agility than I was golden.

I kicked an ant away before nailing it with the pick. The next moth I backhanded as I stomped on the needle rabbit that clanged against my helmet. Learning to fight and chant magic was pretty important. With it, I could move and avoid while I prepared a large attack. I had an advantage right now with how short my chant was, and it wasn't too hard once I got into it. It was a lot like keeping my balance on a moving bicycle while I was typing on a laptop. Not an experience I'd recommend to everyone, but not impossible either.

What was harder was maintaining that feel of magic in my body as I fought, since with this I actually _had_ to concentrate on moving it while focusing on everything else going on around me. Fighting while chanting was more of a swing at this direction and make sure I didn't get hit while balancing on the bike. Fighting while focusing on how the magic moved and swelled within was like having a body filled with water and I had to think how to move the water around as I thought about hitting this bastard—I kicked the ant back and stabbed a needle rabbit clean through, before swinging my blade at another ant a distance away, flinging the carcass at it.

Long story short, it was pretty taxing.

I was also doing this idiocy in the hopes of getting a long-range attack. Saudade was useful, but it was limited in its applications due to its short range and casting time. Despair was a nice a debuff that included a disable, but what really mattered during these earlier levels was a power strike to let me hit above my stats.

My arms were starting to burn from the effort before I casted Saudade for the first time, and immediately the pain subsided together with a large chunk of the wall I'd built up.

The change in status made a difference with how fast and how much effort went into clearing the waves. Yesterday I had to tank damage just to fight back, but now I was tanking out of a conscious consideration for efficiency. The damage I took was less than what I could heal with Saudade, so it made more sense—though it hurt way more—to heal as I fought. Despair was yet to make an appearance since I didn't want to take too much magic from my cash piles.

Due diligence with exploring new spells was a must, and with it I found that Saudade couldn't pull more than I needed. It didn't hyper heal me or overload my mana supply, whatever the hell it might've been. In fact, another nice skill would be to have some visualization of how much mana I had left.

But enough of the boring stuff! I was dual wielding weapons and killing monsters! And it was awesome.

"What's so funny Thomas?!" Gareth said.

"I was laughing?"

"It was creepy," Tsubaki said.

"My bad."

Hack, slash, crush, and pierce. I mechanically killed and got bit, and casted Saudade as I tanked the ants' attacks. The armor was soaking the damage enough for me to finish through with my chanting. And with each successful cast, I recovered and cleared the space of clutter, ready for more. Once the ants stopped spawning, I sheathed my sword and pick and took out my knife.

"He does this a lot?" Tsubaki asked.

"Yeah," Gareth said.

"He asked for the pick, so he could get monsters to stumble into each other."

"So, it seems."

"Loki picked up someone strange."

"I prefer the term, efficient."

I crouched down and cut up the already dead ants for their stones, while those still alive I punched until they died first. Hitting a stationary target was easier than a moving one, and now that they couldn't fight back was the best time to build up my strength stat. Pulling the monsters and throwing their corpses or still living bodies at their fellows was also to build that and dexterity up while the monster marathon and tanking hits was for agility and endurance both.

The ants were a good warm up, but what I really came for were the silverbacks. And picking up some cash wasn't a bad deal either. The clean up session took much longer than the actual fighting and only now did I truly appreciate what Riine was doing for me before. Having her clear up the stones while I harv—I mean, killed the mobs was so much more efficient than the drone I was doing now. It then made me wonder just what is it that the magic crystals were?

 _Crystallized mana, basically._

And then magic takes this mana as the cost for whatever the magic spell would do?

 _Yep._

Has anyone ever tried eating them?

 _They all had stomachaches, and some also had to get those sharp stones taken out of them through surgery. They didn't do anything, Tom._

Did they chew?

 _I assumed they did._

Ah, then that means them chewing was not accounted for.

 _Touche. Seriously though, if you're planning on doing it, at least let the Riveria know first, since she'll probably be the one to heal your sorry ass after._

Noted.

We eventually reached the eleventh floor but was greeted by vast empty fields of mist and a distant rumbling. There were no other monsters and whatever could make the place shake like that was neither an orc nor a silverback. I looked at Gareth. He face-palmed.

"That must be the Infant Dragon," Tsubaki said.

"Aha! So there really _is_ a boss monster!"

"Didn't you know?"

"I was avoiding telling him."

"Why? He wants to solo one?"

Gareth just stared at her.

"No," Tsubaki said with a frown.

"Exactly," Gareth added.

"I apologize," she said.

I was already running towards the beast. It was easy to follow the sounds of it trampling the stone trees of the eleventh floor, and since they said it was a dragon and it shook the ground, I only needed to find something large enough. Note to self, look for a magic lamp I could strap to my head. The real concern then was if it could fly, and if it had some sort of breath attack.

"Thomas," Gareth said running next to me. "It breathes fire."

"Can it do so continuously?"

"No," he said, "it can only fire in short puffs. But its body is extremely hot so none of that clinging onto the monster and stabbing it like a pest."

"Excuse me?" Tsubaki said.

"You'll see later," Gareth said. He turned to me. " _After_ you somehow take care of this."

The beginnings of a silhouette appeared from the mist.

I dove for the ground.

The trembling neared, and the silhouette gave way to a wingless Charizard but with an edgier look. Or was it a Charmeleon on all fours? It was also orange against the white mists and had a long tail just as long as its neck. Its head was higher than the stone trees. I had to look out for its fire breath—oh please I hope it didn't explode like it did for those goddamn Rathalos. The tail swipe too, and just to be sure, it might also have poison in the tip or do hip checks. But at least in real life hitboxes weren't shit.

I crawled over to where the dragon's path would take it.

Beheading it would be the easiest way to win—assuming I was strong enough to cut through flesh and bone. But barring that, the next best was to poke its belly full of holes and hope to Loki that thing died from sepsis. If it could even die from bacterial infections, that is. The goblins I tried dissecting before died from the blood loss, but I couldn't be sure about sepsis since they always died regardless of how I stabbed them. There was the matter of a possible healing factor, but at the very least, poking it with enough holes ought to eventually kill it.

I crouched low among the grass.

There wasn't any wind in the dungeon, so my scent shouldn't be too obvious. But if it had good eyesight or relied on heat sensing—and at worst magic sensing, then this was all useless. Gareth and Tsubaki should've already caught up, and them not commenting was most likely so they didn't spook the beast. Perhaps there was some hope to this yet.

I slowly unsheathed my great sword and prepared to stab.

With such a large monster, its magic crystal would naturally be proportional so the money I made earlier might not even come to close to what I could cash in on with this. Gareth probably wouldn't clean up for me unless things got serious, and I wasn't about to hold back on my magic now. If the blitz didn't work, then I'd stick around for a bit more before deciding to run.

The tremors got closer and the infant dragon's size was reminiscent to facing a Chameleos. Horrible memories surfaced of losing my potions— Fuck. I didn't bring any potions. But at least I didn't have to sharpen my weapon as much. Though maybe I should bring a whetstone—

The creature screeched like a shit-eating Kut-ku, and went on its way, passing me by just a few feet away.

Its right flank was wide open.

The beast had muscular legs and both fore and hind legs had forward-facing knees. It could probably run forward fast, but that also meant it'd have shit turning speed together with its short and stout body. I was expecting its rear legs to be sprawled at least, but the morphology was closer to that of a horse's minus the hind legs. How the hell did biology work here anyway? This thing had shit senses too, it wasn't even tasting the air with its tongue.

I grit my teeth.

Once I stabbed it, either its tail would come whipping or its head would come snapping. It was most likely safer to dodge to the rear flanks not in line with the legs. At least that way it'd have to constantly adjust to where I was.

Decided, I called, " _Madness_." And stabbed forward, committing my body weight into the thrust.

The creature stirred as the blade sunk into its flesh like a knife into a well-done steak, the distinct feel of sinew giving way transmitting through the blade. I quickly pulled it out and rolled to behind and to the left of its tail as the place I stood on was covered in fire.

Ah, right. The breath attacks.

I sheathed my bloody blade as the infant dragon screeched—and spat another fire ball where I stood. I ran towards it, taking out my pick and short sword, but it ran forward as its tail swept back, forcing me to halt my charge. Its bad side made it run slower than it normally could but even that was still faster than I was. It slowed to a trot a distance away as it turned with a wide berth before charging for me with a full gallop.

It was a game of chicken.

I ran for it and sheathed my shorter weapons for the great sword. Dealing with a charge was better done with longer reach, and a rider-less target was best dealt with with the same tactic. The dragon spat fire, but the ball was small enough to dodge if I veered to the side.

At the last second, I rolled for its bad leg and faced back to deal with a tail whip that never came. The dragon kept running and turned wide just like it did before—but stopped once it faced me. It glared glowing red eyes, the fire from its mouth escaping its lips as the black of Madness started enveloping it.

It stretched its neck upwards to the ceiling and screeched high into the air.

Waiting for it to call for reinforcements or take on another form was a horrible idea. I rushed the dragon.

That's when it breathed out a continuous stream of glowing fire.

"Thomas!" Gareth said. "Get out of there!"

I veered to the right and the volley of flames followed. It bent as it trailed through the air, reminiscent of a flamethrower—which meant the dragon was igniting some flammable liquid.

"I got this!"

"Like hell you don't! Infant dragons don't do that!"

"It's probably a special condition if you solo it!"

"Doesn't that mean it's a bad idea?!"

"Are you kidding me?! That usually means you get bonus points for the feat!"

I cleared the stream back first like an Olympic high jumper and rolled away. It was good thing my shield wasn't on my back anymore else that would've hurt like a bitch.

"You insufferable idiot!"

The infant dragon stopped its breath and galloped forward.

I pointed the great sword towards it, ready to dive into a stab. " _Madness_." I covered my body with magic.

The dragon spat a fire ball forward. I took off myself, casting faith into my agility. It came with open jaws, and I prayed my sword could pierce into its torso. The dragon snapped its head to the side and back.

I was thrown off course, but I spun into a horizontal slash and scratched a gash against its body.

Then the tail came.

I flew.

"Thomas! Focus!"

I landed in a roll against the ground, the random stones punching pain into my sides and arms. I stood up and ran sideways from its path. It turned wide and stopped a distance away, before screeching up into the ceiling before letting out another stream of fire. I wanted to think of the beast like a simple monster with a pattern, but I had to remember this was real life and not a game.

I ran sideward and forward, dodging as I advanced. The fire trails followed but couldn't reach, I was lucky it wasn't leading me.

Or was it?

The great sword was too clumsy for such a fast-moving opponent, but it was bleeding out to some extent and the range was too good to give up. I was nearing it when the breath stopped, and the beast put forth its hip, the tail swinging to point forward as if it was in a fighting stance.

I held the blade with both hands, my other one on the blade to better guide it with. I could take out my pick and shield but right now depth was more important.

The dragon breathed out three fire balls—and just to be sure, I dove hard for the ground to the left.

None of them exploded. I got back up and started for the beast.

The tail came first. I parried it along the side of the blade but was disarmed.

The sword fell on its tip and stood on the ground.

I took the pick out. " _Madness_." The weapon ignited with misty black.

The beast snapped but I parried its head away with the blunt end, knocking it enough for me to turn my weapon over and hook onto its neck.

The pick caught.

It brought its entire body forward.

And my arm was nearly torn from my shoulder, but I held on and pulled myself in, ignoring the burning pain from the monster's skin. I expanded Despair to the rest of my body, and like a scourge, the black mist wrapped itself around the beast's head from where I deflected it and from where I was mounting.

"I told you to stop that!"

I pulled myself into position and had to duck low and put my face close against its hide to avoid the snapping jaws. I unsheathed the short sword and stabbed it into the creature's back.

The dragon slowed its running and went into a frenzy, its head whipping back and forth. I was only able to hold on thanks to my weapons stabbed in deep. " _Taken from the peace of home_." It buckled and whipped but I kept wiggling the blade where it was lodged despite the hurt. " _I now stand beyond the veil_." It screeched as its tail whipped the ground and around. " _The aberrant demands reparation_."

Black light exploded, and the dragon's screams faded in intensity as the pain in my body waned.

I pulled the short sword out and thrust it near its spine.

But a burning pair of jaws clamped down on my arm and threw me away.

I crashed back first into a tree without my short sword, but my arm wasn't broken. That was enough. I got up in time to get away from the fire breath and had to run three ways to Sunday to avoid it. It was also a good thing this floor didn't have any flammable flora.

The breath stopped but the dragon didn't run. I ran towards my great sword and picked it up. It spat a fire ball my way.

I committed to my path and changed directions when more fire balls came. They still weren't exploding. And this dammed lizard wasn't flying. I neared the target and ran wide to try and take its back.

It slammed its tail into the ground and I lost my balance with the shaking. Its tail went high again before crashing down.

I rolled away and got up to close the distance with its hind legs. I lashed out with my pick and broke its skin by the knee. The dragon yelped and kicked back at a target that wasn't there. Blood had already pooled where it stood.

Fire washed over me. And I had to roll under its body to avoid the heat. " _Taken from the peace of home_." Its tail shook the ground. " _I now stand beyond the veil_." I swung my pick into its other knee and made contact.

Its body crashed into me, stumbling me off balance.

I was blown back by the tail.

I landed into a roll along the ground and I had to keep rolling to get away from the fire breath that set the ground aflame.

"Thomas!"

"No!" If they helped me now, then it'd lower the experience value—but was it really the time for this? "Let me deal with it a bit longer!"

I stood and ran from the fire, taking out my shield.

"I've half a mind to butt in!"

"Believe in me Gareth!"

I veered hard towards the dragon. It stopped firing fire balls and lowered its body. It was planning something. I put my shield up in front of me and soldiered on.

The dragon raised its head up high and breathed fire upwards, the stream of flames falling back down and coating its body. It charged forward like an avatar of destruction.

I covered myself again in Despair and prayed it'd work. I started chanting, " _Taken from the peace of home_. _I now stand beyond the veil_." I held onto the magic that welled from within.

The dragon screeched a distorted flaming scream as it opened its maw wide.

I threw my hammer at the beast.

It hit it in the face. The dragon reared its head back and I turned my forward momentum into a spin—

—and punched its face aside. " _The aberrant demands reparation_!"

The mass of black from Despair coated its head as the black dome enclosed us, the cool healing and its burning heat mixing in a rage, the dragon's body buckling with its diverted inertia.

I saw the tail come at me in slow-motion.

And in a moment of inspiration, I side stepped forward. It was a maneuver I only ever saw on videos but one I was so familiar with.

The heat of the burning tail came.

I ducked low and brought my arms out as I spun. It was something I'd always hoped to one day do but was never athletic or flexible enough. I raised my hip as one leg kicked up.

A pillar of fire approached like a death sentence.

My leg cleared the danger just as my other leg lifted up and over me, my entire person spinning above the desperate blow. The tail followed through with the motion as I rode the momentum of my spin, casting the shield away as I unsheathed my great sword.

And slashed at the dragon's body.

Blood gushed out of opened its belly.

It's screaming brought me out of the trance and I quickly stabbed my great sword into its exposed underside over and over and over until the flames died down. Despair lifted from my person and I fell to my knees, my body wracked in a pain unlike anything before. I let go of my great sword, but the skin on my hands came off with the heat, leaving its handle a bloody mess. Everything of me was burning.

I howled my victory cry anyway.

It was then that a body landed next to me. An orc. Followed by another three, all of them still breathing but in no shape to even consider coming out of their predicament alive. More bodies kept landing next to me, and soon I saw Gareth walk up to the dragon's body and drag it away.

"Heal yourself," he said, pointing at the pile.

I did as I was told and casted Saudade in a daze, the cool sensation of it soothing the burning hell. The bodies kept coming, some of them hard armored, some of them imps, and a lot more orcs. I kept casting my magic. Only when I was lucid enough to look for where they were coming from did the bodies stop falling, and the sounds of battle reached my ears.

"Congratulations," Gareth said with an uneasy smile. He was kneeling next to my pitiful form sprawled on the ground.

I wanted to speak but my throat was so dry. I shook my head.

"We should head back," he said. "I didn't think we'd need to bring potions."

I wanted to laugh, but my ribs hurt.

#

Gareth carried me back to the Dian Cecht familia clinic and they practically doused me with a bottle or two of those glowing blue liquids. I couldn't complain since the pain immediately went away and I felt better than ever. It even grew back some of the hair I burned off. I was red all over when the battle ended, since I had to capitalize on that split-second I dazed the dragon to drive the point home. It was a stroke of luck that I won, and it was folly to even consider I had any right to be here now, but it was all necessary.

From start to finish my equipment did all the fighting. My arm survived almost getting eaten and I got out of getting my body mangled thanks to the armor being way stronger than I was. Even the burning could've gone so much worse had I not been wearing that jacket. But as cheap as it was, a victory was still a victory, and as weak as I was, I still soloed that thing.

Gareth had Dian Cecht place the cost for my healing on the familia tab. Which was good since that's how I found suddenly found myself sadled with a million and a half of Varis in debt.

Tsubaki was nice enough to have helped us gather some monsters for my first aid treatment, but even she found my methods too much. She didn't offer anything special though, just that she warned if I kept it up then the weapons she made me would eventually lead to my death. I understood what she was talking about, but the victory I had today would pave my way forward.

It was worth it.

What Loki would think though, well, that was another matter entirely. When we got home, I was brought to the executives' room, with Riveria, Finn, Gareth, and Loki in attendance. All four of them stood to one side. It went without saying I was in some knee-deep shit.

"So," Loki started. "How come I didn't hear anymore from you after"—she made air quotes— " _there was a dragon_."

I swallowed hard. Finn's face fell. Riveria just shook her head. Gareth answered for me. "Thomas here found out about the infant dragon."

"Oh," Finn and Loki said.

Riveria placed the little piece of paper that spelled my certain doom. "That explains the bill for three elixirs."

Loki's head snapped at me. "You needed three?! What the hell did you get up to?!"

"He took it on alone," Gareth said. "I wanted to stop him, but he was hell bent on getting it over with alone. He didn't do too bad, all things considered." He shook his head. "He was being stupid but not in too stupid a way."

Finn shook his head. "It was bound to happen sooner or later."

Loki walked up to me.

"Make sure Aiz doesn't find out about him doing that," Finn said. "I have no doubts she'd do the next best thing and try and take on a floor boss herself."

Riveria massaged her temples. "That _does_ sound like her."

"Aye," Gareth said, "the thought's probably passed her before."

"But we can stop her from citing a precedent at least," Finn added. He turned to me. "Repeatedly trying to kill yourself won't help, Thomas. You're more useful to us alive."

"I know that, but I have my own goals for needing to catch up."

"It'll come with time," Gareth said.

"I don't know if I _have_ that time."

Finn pinched the bridge of his nose. " _Happy place Finn, happy place_." He cleared his throat. "What makes this hard is we're dealing with an adult who should have full knowledge of the risks of what he's doing, not a cute ten-year-old girl with an innocent wish."

"That's a blatant display of favoritism and I'm pretty innocent with what I want too."

"But Aiz was cute," Gareth added with a firm nod.

Riveria nodded.

Loki pinched my cheeks hard. "I'm pretty sure we had a conversation like this just last night." She scratched her head. "You're more stubborn than I am. And I'm the bastard who ticked everyone off in heaven!" She paused. "I must've been a total prick."

"I'd say."

"Not a peep, mister!" She turned to the three. "I'm not really sure how best to deal with our resident masochist."

"Weren't you the one who ordered me powerlevelled?"

"That was on the assumption we'd do it in as safe an environment as we could, and not once did it ever involve 'let Thomas run around poking everything with his sword and see if he levelled up' sort of deal."

"But we weren't exactly letting me go to some too deep floors so I could last hit some shit strong mobs."

Loki grabbed my face with both hands. "You have a _month_. A month! It's only been five days!"

"I don't see the difference here."

"Levelling doesn't come just like that." She snapped her fingers. "A level is granted as your legend grows, what you're doing right now is creating a tips and tricks guide and going about it crunching numbers and effort instead of telling a story."

"Stat based stories were all the rage in my time, and dude, I _have_ stats."

Loki brought her palms together. "O dear Odin up above please don't let me smite this shit stain." She turned to the three. "Is this what it's like to deal with me?"

"W-was that self-reflection?!" Gareth said with shock.

"Something must be wrong," Riveria said with a pensive look.

Finn's easy smile disappeared in a flash. "What sort of magic did you cast on Loki?" he asked with a grave tone.

"That's not funny," Loki said.

"Yeah well, you just Loki'ed yourself with your orders for me."

"Rub it in why don't cha." She grumbled into her hands.

"And taking back your orders now would just be counter-productive. You still have a copy of my stat sheet earlier right? And I bet the three top dogs have also seen them. At least, I'd make sure show the people I'd get to guard the wild card what they're dealing with."

"You noticed?" Finn asked with a chuckle.

"It was pretty obvious. And _everyone_ in my world knows dwarves are what you send out to kill magic casters."

"You said there weren't any dwarves in your world," Gareth said with a frown.

"Not living breathing ones, no. We had Dungeons and Dragons."

Finn was about to say something, but Loki stopped him. "It's a game nerds like him play."

"Why would you play with dragons? Are they so powerful a people they could do that?" Riveria asked.

Loki steepled her fingers and turned to me. "You planned that?"

"Nah, they walked into that one themselves."

She held a fist out and I bumped it. "Well played." She cuffed me. "Back on topic!"

"Okay, so, you have the numbers to my stats right? You can't deny the fact that I'm building my numbers pretty fast. It's a lot like cheesing a game by raiding a higher level area and hoping against everything you can loot some gear first before you get turned into a stain."

Loki massaged her temples.

"And you've already been into my head anyway, so you yourself know it's been working."

"Yeah," she said, "but that's the thing."

I raised a brow at Loki and she shook her head.

"I was the one to give you your blessing. But what shows up in your skills and magic usually has some connection to you as a person or how you lived your life. The first magic you ever developed, it was never yours to begin with. The second one, however, was."

"All of this is just going over my head. And I say that with all seriousness. I get this is big, but the gravity of it is lost on me."

"Your spell," Loki said, "Despair. It was never part of your story, of your personhood. You were saddened by being taken from your home, but it was never enough to bring you deep enough to develop something so primal."

"A magic that engulfs the body has no precedent," Riveria said. "After I saw you coat yourself in it and take on this… form, it reminded me of old stories."

"And here comes that speech about some ancient evil?"

"I don't know," Loki said. "And you've felt it, haven't you? Our connection is _deepening_. The Falna's transmission was meant to only go one way, but you receive from me too. That's what really baffled me last night. You were getting glimpses into what I was feeling, and the only ones who could do that were other divine beings—namely, those with power over emotions."

"You just called me something close to a god, does that mean I'm closer to what I need?"

"No. At least, as far as I know." Loki bit her thumbnail. "And _I don't know_." She sighed. "I'm a god who's lived aeons, but I'm caught with one foot in the mud dealing with you. I have knowledge of your world, but not of anything like what we share." She walked back to Finn's table and leaned against it. "The question then, is who _are_ you, Thomas?"

"You've seen my memories, I'd cite that as proof. But if what you're saying is true, then you're probably thinking I could be something that _thinks_ it's Thomas."

"You're taking this better than I thought you would," Gareth said.

I scoffed at him. "I just got told by the nearest thing I know to an omniscient being that she doesn't know _what_ I am. I'm pretty freaked out right now."

Gareth nodded. "Fair."

"So," I said, bracing myself for the one question that truly mattered right now. "What now?"

"For one," Finn said, "I think we can have dinner now."

"Yeah, I'm pretty hungry too, but I'm pretty sure there should be something to dispel all this tension first? I'm pretty high-strung right now. Like, really high-strung."

"Do you feel like killing everyone in this room to keep your secret?" Finn asked with a cocked brow.

"What." I tilted my head at him. "Doing that would be stupid in the non-stat building way. You could've killed me yourselves whenever you had the chance, and your best bet to do that would've been somewhere between here and the Dungeon. Doing it here would've just been in bad taste and would endanger the rest of the familia if I really were some eldritch horror. And no, I have much better things to do like scream or at the very least get some food first before I spiral into a—"

Loki slapped me. "I told you three he's harmless."

I looked at her. "Excuse me?"

She laughed as she pinched my nose. "I told them you were alright even if I couldn't see through your Falna."

"Okay, for a second there I was hoping you'd say it was all a joke." Wait what. "What was that about the Falna?"

"I still think he's taking it too well," Gareth added with a flat stare.

"He's from the twenty-first century," Loki said, "they're all messed up over there."

"I can't refute that." I frowned. "But what was that about the Falna?"

"See," she said. Loki ruffled my hair. "He keeps his hands on his laps when he's nervous, and not once did he deviate from what I got from his head."

"That was horrible evidence, and now I'm freaking out whether or not I really am Thomas."

"Ah," Loki said, "I can't help you there."

"You're not helping."

"I did say I couldn't."

"Yeah, I hate you sometimes."

"And more often than not you want me."

"This so doesn't count as seduction."

"I've said it before, but I swear, it's like listening to two of them!" Gareth said.

"We were thinking you'd turn into some otherworldly evil by now and try killing all of us," Finn said.

" _Despair_." I covered my entire body with my magic.

And found three blades aimed at my neck.

" _Bad joke_?" I asked with that distorted voice.

"I really hate it when he does that," Gareth said.

#

Needless to say, things got weird during dinner.

Loki rented out the whole Hostess of Fertility using all my earnings so far in the Dungeon. It was my punishment for soloing something I had no right to even be looking at, and also since the Infant Dragon's crystal was retrieved intact and net us a really pretty sum of three hundred thousand Varis just for that. It wasn't much by their expedition hauls, but it was still an exorbitant sum for a single person to bag in one day in the Upper Floors.

"Alright everyone!" Loki shouted from the table she stood on. "Thomas isn't some crazed demon out to kill everything!"

Everyone cheered, raising their glasses like she did.

"Time to get everyone drunk and frisky!"

Only the guys cheered, and even then not all of them.

"You went full retard!" I called out. And got a face full of Loki who threw herself at me.

The party got underway with people drinking like there was no tomorrow and Tiona stuffing herself silly. Aiz was the ever-graceful lady eating quietly while more than a few elves were starting to get rowdy. Riveria was the immovable wall that she was, but the glasses of wine disappeared like magic under her practiced etiquette. Gareth started a drinking song called Tinker Tanner together with the other dwarves, while Finn was constantly attended to by Tiona.

Lefiya, Anakity, Alicia, and Riine were all together on one table and chatting away, while Bete was off sulking in a corner like the true edgelord he was. Raul was hounded by Cruz and Rakta to down a few shots of hard liquor that Mia Grand brought out just for the occasion. Loki called it a class two crisis averted and the muscular proprietress was only too happy to indulge her best customer for the night.

It was a crazy messy affair that saw three tables broken, an entire barrel of beer turned over, a very drunk Bete dancing a jig, and Loki harassing three waitresses in the first hour. There was also the fact that I had to sit through all that while having an existential crisis on whether what went through that dimensional shift really was Thomas or some template of Thomas.

But by the end of it, did it really matter?

On the bright side, given how monsters were born from the Dungeon, a really big plus was that I didn't come from it in the same way. That was already a victory! Anything else after that, well, I could deal with eventually. I had magic. And if I could take this back to when I went back to my world, then a certain few audit bastards were gonna get a visit from a friendly neighborhood shadow monster.

The next broken beer barrel really should've clued me in.

Deeper into the night still, Mia Grand got in on the drinking too and the night turned into a near disaster when a certain elf I was not allowed to name jumped another someone I was not allowed to name but could at least reveal was blonde and expressionless and confessed her undying devotion for. The familia went wild and Loki had to be tied up just so she wouldn't break any more tables, but the real icing on the cake was a very frustrated someone who started smashing tankards against her head just to drive a point of wanting to smash.

A Gareth spinning on a bar stool was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.

#

That morning, I was back in my bed in the manor, shirtless, sticky, and with a piece of paper stuck to my face.

 **#**

 **Level 1**

Strength = H 117 - G 228

Endurance = H 140 - G 264

Dexterity = G 205 - F 364

Agility = I 87 - H 181

Magic = G 257 - E 445

Madness Spectrum = I

Tranquil Intervention = I

World Walker = I

Fated Actor = I

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Madness"

Saudade = An area of effect drain spell that takes the magic and life force contained in all within range and transfers it to the user. Targets stronger than the user are able to resist having their magic and life stolen. Has a five-meter radius, and a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Taken from the peace of home / I now stand beyond the veil / The aberrant demands reparation"

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

Enabler = Increases magic by an exceptional amount in a pinch and causes magic damage to siphon life force.


	6. Vol 1 Chapter 5

**Volume 1**

 **Chapter 5**

With the things that happened last night—that shit stain of a party not included—it was understandable how someone might not want to get out of bed.

I wasn't that someone.

When I came down, a few looks came my way with weak greetings, and no one's voice rose above the rest. The messy and noisy breakfast time was instead all quiet and awkward and the few murmurs that wafted about just as quickly died out. People couldn't look each other in the eye, and more than a few shuddered every now and then. More surprising was how for once, Bete didn't look at all out of place.

Loki broke the silence.

"It sure is _amazing_ to be a god!" she screamed. Everyone else clutched their heads, some covering their ears, and one really jacked up Rakta ran for the toilets. "You all suck!" She started laughing—then her eyes met mine. She scoffed. "Tsk, you and your weak ass taste buds."

Everyone there looked at me. This time with more energy than before. "Not my fault I don't like the taste of beer."

I was suddenly face to face with a red-eyed Tiona. She'd taken the liberty to grab me by the cheeks. "You're sober," she said matter-of-factly.

"I am."

Her grip tightened as she pulled me in even closer. "How much do you remember?"

I smiled. " _Everything_."

The scene after that was like an image of hell as the rest wailed and beat at the tables, some going so far as to scream in silent horror. It was a lie though because I was pretty sure I got a few kilograms of dwarf fly at me with a speed that would never be safe in an indoor area. At least until then, everything was crystal clear.

"You saw _nothing_ ," Tione said with a smile. " _Right_?" Her grip tightened some more, her fingers brushing against my teeth through my cheeks.

As much as I enjoyed beating a dead horse, and it was more fun to insult a half-dead one that couldn't fight back. She was neither. "Yes ma'am."

"Ah," Loki said, "spoil my fun."

"You don't get a say in this!" Tione said. She glared at the others. "No one saw anything, _right_?" A bunch of nods came her way. "Good," she said with a smile. She still looked like shit though. Tione grabbed a plate of food, dragging Tiona behind her who was curled up in a ball and writhing on the ground.

"I guess a Falna doesn't guarantee immunity to hangovers?"

"Nope," Loki said, "a Falna doesn't make you invincible against illnesses either. But it does make you harder to kill, so go figure."

"Healing factor?"

"Try conceptually instead."

"Nasty." I couldn't even begin to fathom how horrible it was to be kept alive by the simple virtue of being.

Loki clapped me on the shoulder. "Come by the executive room first before you go killing stuff again."

"Sure," I said. It's not like things could get any worse than they already were right? And yes, tempting fate like this usually made it step up to the plate most times, but I figured whatever bad thing was gonna happen would happen anyway, might as well try triggering it now while the stakes still weren't as high. "Do I need anything?"

"An open mind." Loki shifted from foot to foot. "And maybe some snacks, we might take a while."

I shrugged. "Alright then." I stretched an arm out. "Breakfast then, m'lady?"

She hooked her arm around mine. "Did anyone tell you you're not much fun when you're freaking out?"

I tilted my head at her. "Bruh."

Loki pinched my nose. "Food time."

We all ate in silence. And it was to no surprise that Lefiya came down without a peep and without so much as anyone commenting on the debaucheries that occurred—or followed after. Aiz came after her, and, it was only prudent to state that a blank wall was pure simply by virtue of a lack of blemish as opposed to a conscious conviction against the lesser humors.

Really, how often did these things happen anyway?

Gareth came down with Finn and Riveria, the three of them looking fresh as a trio of daisies. A few grumbles and glares went their way, but they took it all in stride and sat as if last night wasn't something everyone else didn't want to remember. Finn and Riveria sat with the more somber members near the end of the long table, at the same end as Aiz—who was as far as she possibly could from Lefiya.

And Lefiya, well, she was face down on her porridge.

The dwarf sat next to me. "Sorry about last night Tom," he said with a boisterous laugh. "Mia's bar stools come extra spinny, always a blast to get on it while buzzed."

"I don't mind, I guess." I mean sure I blacked out, but no blood no foul right? At least I didn't see anything incriminating on my booze covered body this morning. There was a small heart attack when I found myself shirtless, but at least my ass didn't hurt. That was already a win right there.

"Good sport, eh?" He clapped me on the back.

"What did I tell ya?" Loki slung an arm over Gareth.

"That he could've been some demon from beyond the veil?" Gareth winked at me. "Or so he's been chanting."

Loki looked at me. "Eh, what can I say? I'm only mortal right now."

"And you were the one coming onto said demon."

"I've humped worse."

"Yeah, I've read."

Gareth looked at the two of us with undisguised displeasure. "It's too early for this."

He was about to move his food but Loki wouldn't let him. "Shh, just let it happen Gareth."

Revulsion would've been the only word to describe the dwarf's face.

"We'll behave." I raised my hand and crossed my heart. "On a god and her minion's honor."

He gave us a lopsided frown. I shrugged and pointed at the elf with a nod. "Gareth, uhh, shouldn't we, I don't know, cheer the pervert up?"

Lefiya sank further into her food.

"You just delivered the final blow!" Tione said from the other table.

"Heh, I know."

Gareth shook his head.

We finished up at more or less the same time and I brought up some pastries from the kitchen like Loki suggested. After everything they'd revealed so far, what else was there to expect? Oh, hey Thomas did you know you actually had demon blood in you? Whoop-de-doo. Yeah, I doubt anything's still going to surprise me by this point. I entered the room to see the same scene as last night but without the pressure of the three level sixes bearing down on me.

"You wanted to see me?" I set down the bagels and Danish toasts.

Riveria picked the one with the strawberries I was saving for myself.

"Yeah," Loki said. "Finn, just give him the bare details, he'll ask for more if he needs it."

She tossed something over and I caught it. It was a large magic crystal that was about a third of the infant dragon's and was hefty in my fist. It was a lustrous orange versus the subtle sheen of purple I usually got. "Lemme guess, it's not supposed to look like this?"

"Yes," Finn said, producing another one. "That stone came from the new type of monsters we fought in the fiftieth floor. They were large green caterpillar like things that spat acid that could melt through adamantite." He held up the stone. "And this, we got from the monsters Bete destroyed in the sewers yesterday during the Monster Feria."

Something big enough to concern Finn just passed me by. "Funny I didn't hear about that last night."

"What do you think the party was for?" Loki asked.

"To distract everyone from me possibly being a demon?"

"The world doesn't revolve around you Tom," Loki said, "it was to distract the others."

"Right." I turned the stone over and looked into it. It was opaque just like the other stones I got but there was a sort of sheen from within that I couldn't quite put a finger on. Like there was a something there and not there. But in terms of simple relation, two different monsters found with similar stoned from two very different locations, it couldn't have been coincidence. "It doesn't take a genius to know those two events are connected, but remind me again how many times there've been new species before in the dungeon?"

"Never," Riveria said. "The monsters we've been vanquishing in the dungeon have not changed over the millennia, and they've never changed shape either." She met my eyes.

"But?"

"But there have been deviants before," Gareth added. "Something akin to the likes of larger variants or differently colored ones who turn out stronger."

"And these deviants come from the same floor?"

Riveria nodded.

"And now you think those caterpillars came from a much deeper floor?"

"Yes," Finn said.

"How many times have you been to the fiftieth floor before? Are there any written accounts of the monsters that can be found there? Actually, has anyone else reached the fiftieth before besides you?"

"We've been there countless times already," Finn said. "Give or take about thirty or so times already." He took out a small book from his drawer. "This is a copy of the Zeus Familia memoirs. It details the sights and monsters that can be found from the first floor to the sixty-seventh floors. Other familias that have reached that place include the Hera and Freya familias."

"Oh, is there no Poseidon or Hades familia? Odin? Thor? Uhh, there was a Ganesha I think, so Vishnu? Brahma?"

Finn hummed. "I see you have some knowledge of the gods."

"I've read up on a few of them before."

"The Poseidon familia is also gone now," Finn said, "they were one of the familias who helped end the age of monsters. About the others, Loki?"

"Thor hasn't come down yet, he was too busy twiddling his thumbs so now he's stuck back in heaven. Vishnu and Brahma, they didn't have any plans of leaving either." She gave me a pat on the head. "And there are more gods than you think, Tom. I can't account for all of them."

"Right, so the memoirs stop there because they already died out?"

"Bingo," Loki said.

Gareth's brow twitched.

"I've also noticed the monsters don't have reproductive organs. I don't think they're able to reproduce and produce new monsters different from them."

"Evolution you mean?" Loki said. I nodded. "No, if anything, the memoirs of before prove as much, and even if there was a possibility of evolution, then we should've already seen evidence of it."

Gareth shook his head. "At least all that butchering you've been doing had a purpose to it."

"Of course. I wasn't just disemboweling everything for the heck of it."

"Really?" Finn asked with a frown. He passed Gareth a few large coins.

Gareth smiled rightly at him. "Told you so."

Finn sighed. "For once, I swear, I'll win betting on you doing something stupid just for the heck of it."

I pointed at Loki.

"That doesn't count," Finn said.

"Rude," Loki said. She pinched my ass.

Riveria cleared her throat. "The monsters Bete fought were these large carnivorous plants that reacted to magic."

"Yeah, that's so not suspicious at all."

"The day after we fought the caterpillars was also the day we found you, Thomas," Finn said.

"That explains a lot." It really did. So much. Heck, I'm amazed they didn't lock me up somewhere to interrogate me. I was thankful they didn't though. "Thanks for not dissecting me."

"Loki wanted to," Finn said.

"Color me surprised?" Loki said with a wink.

"Our current theory is there's a tamer controlling these monsters." Finn laid the magic stone against his desk. "What's more concerning is those plant monsters Bete swore were on par with a level four adventurer."

"Taming makes sense. Who are your suspects?"

"The Ganesha familia is the easiest, but that idiot loves the lower world's children, so I doubt he'd condone something like this." Loki took the stone from my hand and let the sun shine on it. "Another would be the Guild."

"Nah, that doesn't make sense one bit."

"You barely know anything about them," Gareth said.

"True, but I trust enough in them to want to keep their business model alive. The Guild regulates the magic stone industry and maintains their monopoly, killing adventurers by bringing up over levelled monsters from the deep floors would necessitate: one, they harmed their own productivity; two, them having the means to do so either via magic or some really powerful adventurers; and three, that they opened themselves to retribution in case they were found out. The second point may be possible assuming teleportation magic exists." I looked at Loki. "Has there been a precedent for an adventurer before gaining such a powerful magic?"

"None that I know of," Loki said. "Riveria? Could you try having the mages check that angle?"

Riveria nodded. "I'll have them look." She smiled at me.

"I got transported here is already a pretty good precedent." I looked at Gareth. "The Guild is already making a killing with their monopoly, and shaking that up after how many centuries of serving faithfully is too out of character. Unless there's been a recent change in management?"

"No," Loki said, "Ouranos has been keeping the guild running for as long as it stood. I think we can rule the Guild out now."

"Reasonable," Finn said.

"There's also the familia with the only level seven." I shuddered just thinking about Freya and Ottar again. "I'm not willing to bet my ass on it, but if anyone had the capability to man handle those monsters, then it'd be that crazy lady and the king."

Loki shook her head. "Freya's knocked in the head, but she won't murder indiscriminately. She'd murder someone for crossing her or even just mildly insulting her, but she won't do it on a whim just to see people suffer."

"Is that your sisterly instincts?" I raised a brow at her.

"Eons of dealing with heaven's number one spoiled brat."

"Fair enough." I scratched my chin, the stubble catching against my nails. "What about powers outside Orario? Countries? Companies? Anyone else with a bad enough interest in the Dungeon and whoever has the means to raise a level five."

The four of them looked among each other.

"Rakia?" Gareth asked.

They all laughed before Finn said a flat, "No."

"There's Kali and her extreme methods?" Riveria said.

"People don't level up as much fighting other people. The Dungeon is still the most efficient way to level up," Finn said. He bit his right thumb.

"If you ask me, a familia or other entity bringing up level four monsters to the surface to terrorize is not efficient at all. From what you've told me about the sewer flowers, whoever planted that probably wanted to slowly build up their numbers over time then unleash them on the populace. At least, that's the best I can think of to really drive the point home. A visible massacre people would be helpless of stopping from occurring would break the back of any city."

Riveria frowned. "You're not wrong."

Finn raised an eyebrow at Loki. "You think the Eviluz might be involved again?"

"You actually _had_ a terrorist group?"

Loki nodded. "As close to one yeah, they pulled off a massacre six years ago in the Dungeon. Straight up killed a lot of people and left a nasty memory in Orario's long history." She gestured at Finn. "And you're looking at the guy who stopped them."

"Did it add to your stats?"

Finn didn't hide his disappointment. "People are not just numbers."

"I didn't mean that." I raised a brow at him. "Did you?"

"I don't want to answer that question."

"Alright but think it over later after I've left. I don't plan on killing people, but if a tamed monster who kills an adventurer is able to remotely farm exilia, then there might be some merit to a familia setting these monsters up somewhere to farm kills somewhere hidden."

Riveria answered for the two of them. "Alright."

"Anything else you might wanna tell me?"

Loki looked the three of them in the eyes before nodding at Finn.

"There was one more new species of monster we fought at the fiftieth floor," Finn said. It was this humanoid thing that released explosive powder from its body. It was what forced us to come back to the surface."

That wasn't much to go by. "Sorry, that's too little information to draw anything from, if any, we can at least assume there's a connection between that large monster, the caterpillars, and the plants." I breathed in. "If anything, I bet there's something or someone deep down in the Dungeon below that's begun to act. My coming here might be part of why I was Fated or something, so I can't help but fixate on how timely it all is."

"Reasonable," Loki said. "Finn, make sure to have everyone in the familia on the lookout."

"Also, has it ever occurred to anyone that the Dungeon might have an actual intelligent consciousness?"

"The Dungeon spawns monsters accordingly to the mood," Loki said. "Everyone knows its intelligent."

"But as a person?"

"It's not impossible."

"You're a god."

" _Just_ gods. We're not fully omniscient."

"Dang, that would've been useful." A moment of silence passed. "Also, Loki, I remember you saying gods can't use your godly powers here. Are there any exceptions to that?"

Loki rubbed her chin. "What are you getting at?"

"That there's also the possibility of a god or some demon interfering within the Dungeon. If there was some way for them to use their powers then it could probably explain a few things. I doubt that terrorist group you spoke of earlier didn't have a god behind them."

"That's reasonable," Loki said. "But us gods can feel it when others use their Arcanum."

"Is that everywhere? Like, even if they used it inside the Dungeon then all you gods would know who used it?"

"That's right."

"But is that for a fact, or is that just what you believe to be true so far?"

"Divinity is not hampered by any physical or magical means, Tom. Divinity simply is."

I frowned. "And what of beings other than gods?"

"No such thing," Loki said.

"I see, then maybe at least we could pay some attention to the Freya familia regardless? Having those guys ready for an attack would be nice if at least to help reinforce us. And if the king's on the lookout—assuming they meant us no harm—then the strongest man in Orario would be a really nice boost to our forces."

"Already considering the worst, Tom?" She smiled. "That's fine. I was planning on meeting up with her later anyway. She might be able to shed some more light on who else she suspects might be behind this."

I looked around. "We good then?"

Finn looked to Riveria, she nodded at Gareth, who stroked his beard. "Yes," Loki said, "we good."

"Good." I placed my hands on my hips. "Yep, still not surprised."

#

Gareth and I planned to head to the Dungeon first thing after the meeting, but we had a small errand to run before that together with Finn.

We walked with Aiz, Tiona, Tione, and Lefiya a bit of the way out. They were on their way to the Goibniu familia workshop, since Aiz and Tiona were getting their weapons back from repair, while Tione was to claim her newly remade ones. Aiz was only too happy to get her flimsy ass sword back—which was apparently unbreakable because of that Durandal thing. It was also nice how the four had somehow already bounced back from the shit they got themselves into last night and were now talking normally, though Aiz and Tiona weren't looking forward to their coming debts.

"Ah, they're all going to scream at me again," Tiona said without gusto.

"Aren't you used to it by now?" Her sister asked.

"I broke the sword they lent me," Aiz said.

"How much did that cost?"

"I'm afraid to ask," Aiz said.

"It's alright Aiz, we'll pay it back in no time," Lefiya said.

"That just means we'll need to do a quick raid for some money," Finn said.

"Can I come?"

"You're asking to come with a group of level fives to go to some floor Loki knows how deep," Gareth said, shaking his head.

"It's gonna happen sooner or later anyway, right?"

"Umm," Lefiya said, "that's err…" She looked to the twins. "Help?"

"Thomas," Tiona said. She had a look to her that made me stand on attention. "You'll just get in the way, we'll need to constantly watch out for you down there. And we can't afford to do that and also do what we plan to."

She had a very good point. "I understand."

"That's right Thomas, we should… did you just agree?"

"What she said made a lot of sense."

"And the things I say don't?!"

"There's a difference of wanting to listen to a pretty lady and having to with a grumpy old man."

"Oh you." Tiona had on a bashful smile. She punched me on the shoulder—and I was thrown off the paved street.

I crashed into a little girl holding up a huge ass bag, and Finn was the first one there to help her up. The huge thing behind her barely made him tilt, but her little legs seemed to wobble before standing firm when her feet touched the ground. He held her hand gently while I was left to nurse my possibly broken arm still seated on the ground.

"I'm really sorry about my friends," Finn said to the girl with an angelic smile.

She was a young thing that couldn't have been older than twelve—but that chest of hers, suffice to say, made me feel really awkward after I noticed. I stood up with some help from an apologetic Tiona.

"Oh, a parrum," Lefiya said from behind a seething Tione.

That explained the too mature look then. "Is she alright?" I was the one who got hit though, but I was also the one wearing the deep floor armor.

The girl brushed her hooded self off, before bowing over and over again once she got a good look at Finn. "It was Lili's fault for hitting the great adventurer, please forgive her."

Finn's smile disappeared.

"Who's Lili and why are you apologizing for her?" I asked the girl.

The girl jolted, before bowing my way another few times for good measure. "Lili was the one who hit the great adventurer."

Oh. Weird, to speak in the third, but everyone has their kink. "I was the one who ended up hitting you though."

"Ah." She shook her head and bowed again. "Lili is very sorry to have dirtied your garbs." She bowed another, her bag bobbing up and down behind her. "Please great adventurers, please forgive Lili since she can't compensate you for your losses."

There was something in the way her eyes buzzed, as if she couldn't focus on looking at me as we spoke. It was an unnatural feeling to talk to someone who wasn't looking at you even though her expression said so. "It's really alright, if any, I and that brute there are the ones who should apologize." I pointed at Tiona, she stuck out her tongue.

Finn laid a hand on her shoulder. "Raise your head," he said with a commanding tone.

The girl, Lili, did as told as if lightning struck her back. "S-sorry!"

"Don't apologize," Finn said. His eyes lost their mirth, replaced instead with something deeper.

People were starting to look at us, but a timely glare from Tione had them all scurrying back to their daily lives.

"Uh, Finn, please don't trouble her any—"

"Shut it."

"Yessir."

"You," he said to Lili. "What's your name?"

"Please mister advent—"

"I asked you a question."

"L-liliruca Arde, sir." Her shoulders were starting to heave, her breath catching in short puffs. Her comically large bag transmitted all of the motions of her tiny frame against the absurd load. It looked a lot like panic.

"Lili," he said, "which familia do you belong to?"

"S-soma, s-sir."

"Ah," Finn said, " _them_." He shook his head.

I guess that meant bad blood.

"You there." Finn pointed at the man in the red jacket and a pony tail, he'd been hanging around our group since I ran into Lili and hadn't left since. He also kept glancing our way, but I guess I wasn't the only one who noticed. He had a sword strapped to his back and nothing else on his person. His coat also hung loose against his body. Yeah, those were death flags right there. You shouldn't mount a one-handed sword on your back just to look cool, and clothes that could catch somewhere were just accidents waiting to happen.

Granted I too had a sword behind my back, but that was a great sword I could take liberty with taking off since I had easier to unhook weapons at my sides.

"Was she your supporter?" Finn asked.

"Yes," pony tail said. He wasn't as good at hiding his surprise as he figured. "We were on our way down to the dungeon."

"We'll be borrowing her for a while," Finn said. His tone wouldn't take no for an answer. "We'll compensate you for your losses." He turned to me. "I know you're keeping some coins on your belt, give it all to him."

Take my emergency stash why don't cha, but fine, if Finn was asking for something, then he'd get it. It's not like I was spending much anyway. "Is thirty-thousand Varis enough?"

"D-don't insult me!" pony tail said.

"You want more?" Finn said. He produced a small bag himself. "Here's another fifty."

Pony tail's indignation I could hear through his teeth, and the poor girl Lili was like a shaken leaf in the middle of a hurricane. Finn took my pouch and poured it into his, he then tossed this to pony tail.

The guy's smile was unmistakable despite the supposed insult he took. He went away richer by like two days' worth of honest to goodness harv—I mean hunting.

"P-please don't hurt Lili."

"You're coming with us," Finn said. "Gareth, change of plans, I'm coming down with you and Thomas later with our new friend. Tione, I entrust you with letting Riveria know later."

"Yes captain!"

"Thomas," he said.

"Yeah?"

"She'll be your supporter later, Gareth and I will be standing guard. We'll be heading to the seventeenth floor."

"You sure?" Gareth asked him.

"We'll take you to see what you've been asking for all this time."

"Please," Lili said, a tear rolling down her cheek. "Please don't kill Lili."

"You can return Thomas's money to him first." He glared at her.

"Eh?"

Lili produced the purse I kept in my jacket pocket and passed it to me. I checked my person for it and didn't find the piece. "Please take it back. Lili won't do it anymore, she promises."

"Yes," Finn said, "Lili won't be doing this from now on. Now then, you'll be coming with us to earn your own money."

"P-please just let me go…"

"No. We're going there so you can buy your freedom." Finn smiled at her. "We're also going down there to send a message, and if it doesn't catch, then we'll just abduct you for ourselves."

"Err, Finn, that's kinda sinister."

He shrugged. "I know what I'm doing."

I looked at the girl and she looked like a cornered coyote ready to bite its leg off. "She doesn't look too well."

"Please don't say such cruel jokes to Lili. Lili is only weak, and not worth your time, Lili will work hard to pay back the money she tried to steal so just please let Lili go already." She cowered back as if trying to hide inside the folds of her gigantic bag.

" _Rejoice_ , Lili," Finn said, "we'll earn you your freedom yet."

"That's not funny," Lili said with tears in her eyes.

"Gareth," Finn said, "you mind indulging me?"

"I've stuck with you through worse," Gareth said.

Lili sank to her knees. Aiz and the others were now keeping the curious crowds from staying too long, their very presence there preventing anyone from speaking out. It was a stereotypical show of power and the people were helpless to stop it.

"Thomas, I need you to talk to Loki for me." The light in Finn's eyes said nothing of guilt or hesitation.

What we were doing felt wrong, but despite that I felt like I had to help him anyway. Charisma? "Ok."

Hey Loki, Finn wanted something.

 _I figured as much. Congratulations Thomas, looks like you're a more positive influence than you thought_.

I caused this strange fit of violence?

 _It's not necessarily violent—not yet at least._

What the hell is Finn planning?

 _Weren't you supposed to be the one to tell me?_

"She's listening, Finn. I'll relay your words as you speak, and I'll speak for her."

Finn nodded. "I want to get her away from Soma."

"Why?"

"I've been twiddling my thumbs for too long, it's time to make a difference myself."

"Oh, pray tell what caused the change of heart?"

"A certain idiot who's just trying to get home."

"I'm right here you know?"

"Weren't you supposed to be an oracle right now?" Gareth said.

"Focus, Thomas," Finn said. He pinched his nose.

"Umm, shouldn't Lili get a say with what happens to herself?"

"Yeah," Finn said, "you're supposed to say, _thank you Finn_."

#

We separated from Aiz and the others half-way down the street to Babel, and after that it was onward to Tsubaki's place. The crowds earlier broke up as soon as we left though a few murmurs remained. It was a strange feeling to be walking with a compliant… abductee?

Finn, Gareth, Lili, and I walked in a line.

"Thomas," Finn said, "you better prepare yourself, we're not leaving until we get a hundred thousand, and if we're lucky, the infant dragon might be there again."

"I don't know how you got Gareth and Loki to go with your suggestion, but okay, I'll play ball."

"Why would you play with…"

"Just don't mind that last thing I said. I'll cooperate."

 _There there, Tom._

"So Lili," I asked the girl.

She looked back at me, then the ground. Shook her head. Looked at Finn, and for a moment looked more lost than I was when I first ended up here. "Lili is still not sure what's happening."

"Finn here apparently wants you to buy your freedom from your god and wants you to join our familia instead."

"T-the Loki familia?! B-but Lili is just a—"

"Stop that," Finn said. "You are not _just._ You are a parrum, and you _will_ from now on be a part of Loki's familia one way or another."

She kept mum after that.

We reached Tsubaki's place. I knocked on the door. Something exploded. Out the door came Tsubaki. One eye met two.

"How are you already walking?" she said.

"I wasn't armed to the teeth for nothing."

She looked at me real close. "Something changed."

"I leveled up."

She flicked me on the forehead. "Nice try, Tom."

I rubbed at the sore spot. Damn she hit hard. "You could try holding back a bit you know."

"A level two wouldn't have complained."

"Pretty sure three levels above is still substantial."

She waived a hand dismissively. "If you came for your new great sword, though I don't know if I could still call it that, you're in luck."

"That's nice." I gestured at Finn. "But we actually came for something else."

"Aye," Gareth said. "We speak today for the familia."

"Hoh-hoh!" Tsubaki slapped her knee. "Now I'm fired up!" Her excitement was short-lived. She looked at me. "Please tell me this isn't for him."

Gareth scratched his head. "It isn't for him. Our new order is one for all the executives."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Good." Tsubaki looked over my shoulder. "New member?"

"De facto member."

"What's that?"

"I meant Finn went and decided on his own, and Loki approved."

"Which familia is she from?"

"Soma," Finn said.

"Ah, good. About time someone did something about them."

"That bad?"

Tsubaki nodded. "That bad."

"We need a weapon for all executives with the Durandal property," Finn said.

Lesser smiths might've asked what the hell that meant, but I knew that was what made Aiz's toothpick of a baselard-rapier thing able to withstand the abuse Gareth's told me all about. She was basically using that thing to slice golems of solid rock in two to name a few, as well as bisect a few tons of muscle and bone with each fomoire she took down back in the fiftieth. Her sword was the only thing to survive that encounter with those corrosive caterpillars. But still, there were better things to use when fighting monsters.

"What are you planning on fighting?" Tsubaki had a fierce grin.

"Monsters who can melt through adamantite with their stomach acids," Gareth said.

Tsubaki looked at me before turning to Gareth and Finn. "This guy's also fighting against those?"

"No, but that's what the communication magic is for," he said. "We'll have some measure of safety should things go wrong." He knocked on the wooden table.

"Loki will still get in touch with Hephaistos to finalize the contract," Finn said. "I thought I'd better commission the weapons before we even start discussing the terms of the next expedition to give us more time. I can already tell you now, we'll be asking for a group of blacksmiths to accompany us."

"And we can get part of the loot first hand," Tsubaki said with a nod. "Not bad. I'll be waiting for that then." She clapped her hands. "So, what weapons do the executives use?"

Gareth listed the orders down: a spear for Finn, a pair of short swords for Bete, a halberd for Tione, a great sword for Tiona, and an axe for himself. Of course, it had to be an axe. The prices though were simply obscene, reaching upwards of a hundred million Varis for each piece. As for how the Durandal came about, it apparently took a smith with the Blacksmith development ability at least, and then a solid effort to craft the piece with the image of strength. It was a vague explanation to a not very clear question delivered by someone who understood their craft more by feel than by rigid and precise measurement.

After they discussed their exorbitant toys came my order for the specially shaped great sword. This one I remembered from a video I watched a while ago about armor breaking swords and came from a game if I remembered right. It was a thick sword with pick-like projections at the tip so it could hack through armor, while the main blade had enough heft in it to hit hard enough to chop deep. It was a weapon for fighting heavily armored enemies just like my pick except this had the intention to cleave compared to the crushing and piercing of my war hammer.

"Here," Tsubaki said. She passed me the blade.

I held it in front with both hands. I had Tsubaki make the sword into a true two-hander so I could better wield and leverage its weight. It was a lot heavier than the great sword I was using right now, and this was even after the use of mithril in its body to lighten it. The metal was also intended to better accept my magic since I had an enchant type, which really jacked up the price.

Gareth inched closer to the sword, eyeing it close. "It's a strange shape, but I can see how it could be useful."

"I had some fun trying these out last night," she said. Tsubaki brought out a leather vest. "It works as intended."

"It's a weapon for fighting monsters, not people."

Finn held his hand out to me and I gave him the blade. He took it in his hands and was didn't even look like he felt its weight. That was a level six for you, alright. He gave it a slow deliberate swing. "Tsubaki, if you were to make these with a cheaper mix of steel and adamantite, how many can you make for us by the month's end?"

"With the change of materials, our smiths should be able to make thirty within the time."

"We'll also need to restock with the usual numbers."

"Make that fifteen then."

"You can move it down to ten."

"That's for the best," Tsubaki said. She scratched her head. "Your familia goes through second and third class weapons like Aiz does jagamarukun."

Finn couldn't even laugh. "Earn more, spend more."

"Must be tough," Tsubaki said.

Finn and Tsubaki got into a more numbers heavy discussion on delivery times, material availability, and pricing when they started on the restock order. Gareth chimed in with comments while I chipped in my two cents on the idea of fullers to maybe help lessen the need for material. It took an extensive discussion on material integrity, toughness, and a bit on metal microstructure formation that got me reliving my college days.

When they finished, the numbers were simply astronomical compared to the measly chump change my custom weapons took, and I guessed the familia simply made that much with these expeditions. Lili though couldn't even believe her eyes when she found out Tsubaki was the captain of the Hephaestus familia and my and Gareth's contracted smith.

Her cluelessness was probably what I looked like when Loki had Finn abduct me… and now here I was helping him abduct another person.

Life was funny that way, I guess.

All this talk of huge ass prices and the just as absurd value that went into deep floor materials made me think of how horrible inflation was in Orario.

If such high value items could be harvested and exchanged for currency, then the prices of more mundane goods would quickly fluctuate. This could be solved if the money moving around in Orario were all fixed, but then that'd instead lead to a fluctuating and very volatile value to the Varis depending on who came from what expedition and how much they brought back.

It was a very strange system to be talking with such phenomenal amounts of money.

Well, not my problem. I could probably figure out some way to leverage that to the familia's advantage, but not right now. That would be a project for later. Today, was a time to test out my new toy. "It's straight to the seventh floor with this, and if the infant dragon's down below, then it's time for a rematch."

Tsubaki sighed. "It's a good thing that monster is a rare one."

I frowned at her.

"Others would usually be happy hearing that." She ran a hand through her hair. "Did you think a monster rex is so easy to defeat? Don't even think about trying to take one on yourself. Not now at least, maybe not even until you reach level three at least if you really want to."

"If I'm lucky," Gareth said, "the expedition won't run into too many by the time we do go."

"I'm not about to swear to a dwarf's luck," Finn said with a straight face. "But if we're betting…"

I clapped him on the shoulder. "Finn, you have a problem."

"What did Lili get herself into…"

#

Gareth had Lili on his shoulders while Finn stood guard with my old great sword—rather, Gareth's old great sword.

Lili was screaming all the way from the horde of ants we pulled in, but I barely spent any effort cleaning up. When the pile of corpses started to crowd the way behind us, that's when Finn had Lili start collecting the stones.

"This is crazy!" Lili said.

I was killing ants left and right without breaking too much of a sweat. The short sword and pick were doing fine today, and the boost to my stats helped make each swing that much faster and deadlier and less tiring. It was such a strange experience to feel the substantial changes to my body.

I kicked an ant that had its jaws around my shin and ended up caving its head in, before hammering a needle rabbit into the ground and slicing a poison moth in two.

Keeping still wasn't the smartest when dealing with the dungeon, and I'd been here enough times to know I ought to keep defending an area instead of a spot.

I was keeping the horde in line using a narrow hallway to funnel them into more manageable waves. At most eight ants could fit side to side and it was already an improvement to getting encircled. Danger and death were always lurking around the corner in the Dungeon, and not feeding them any flags was in everyone's best interest.

Lili was filling the sacks she had. Her hands were skillful and efficient, moving with a grace and expertise that bellied a ton of experience. It was concerning how cowed and subservient she was earlier, but if she was this good at what did, then why did she need to steal? There was more to this story than a sappy montage for sure.

"Come on Tom, is this everything you've got?" Finn said with a laugh.

He was really getting into it today. "I can go deeper."

"Then let's go."

The horde died out, and Lili finished nearly at the same time as I did thanks to Finn cutting them up for her. It was an efficient collection method that got us working through the eighth through tenth floors like clockwork. We would pull all the monsters we could until we reached the stairs then I'd kill them all off before going to the next floor.

Lili was still complaining by the eighth floor, but once the monsters started ganging up on the ninth, grumbling was all that was left of her so she couldn't get buried by all the monster carcasses Finn was passing her.

Hunting in the eighth and ninth floors didn't give the best returns, but it was still experience and cash.

On the tenth floor, the orcs were good for their gold efficiency. They net me on average around two hundred Varis a piece, while ants were the next best at a hundred and fifty each, but their spawn rates could easily ramp up the more I left half dead, and it was always a balance between how many to bait and how much I could take. Gareth and Finn were there, but the moment I asked for help would mean I'd hit my limit then.

The orcs and hard armoreds let up, and I had a moment to breathe.

"You people are working Lili to the bone, but all you really want is her services. Don't bother with the lies, Lili knows her place." Her hands were quick as ever, the last monster crumbling to dust as the last I'd killed fell to the ground. Finn passed it to her after processing and it crumbled too.

"I saw my fellow kin and decided I wanted to do something," Finn said.

"So you take Lili and make her work just so you could take all the money for yourselves?!" She finished up but stood by obediently. She was a non-combatant if it wasn't any more obvious, and the weapon she had on herself was nothing more than a cheap dagger, perhaps for cutting into those larger beasts to get to the juicy center.

"All the stones you're collecting are yours," Finn said. "Isn't that right, Tom?"

"Sure," I said. "I'm really just doing this for the stats." Cutting the stones out wasn't really necessary for me since Loki was letting me freeload off her familia. And using Saudade to clean up was a waste of perfectly good cash. Once we went on the expedition, a few pieces of deep floor loot would be enough to pay for my debts anyway, I just enjoyed counting the money.

"Why would you tell Lili such a cruel joke?"

"You heard our talks earlier right? A million or two is just a drop in the bucket for these oligarchs."

"Oli-what?"

God I was really starting to hate this place.

 _I know right._

"The Loki familia is obscenely rich, is what I meant to say."

"Lili has noticed." She shook her head. "None of what's happening makes sense to Lili. But, if you'll just leave Lili to die—"

"Just try and believe in me for now, Lili," Finn said. "Things _will_ change for us from now on." He had on a bright smile without pretense or blemish, a pure one with a wish that seemed so simple.

"Finn," I said, "what is it that bothers you so much?"

Finn chuckled. "I keep forgetting you weren't from around here."

"Is that a compliment?"

"I'd say so," Gareth chimed in.

Finn let out a long breath. He looked at Lili, she looked away. Gareth gave his friend a clap on the back. "Our people, the parrum race, once believed in the goddess Fiona."

"And I take it she didn't come down with the rest?"

"Because she never existed in the first place." The smile Finn had on a was a sad and nostalgic one. "Our people fell to its knees when that truth was made known, and we haven't been the same since."

"I take it you were a deeply religious people?"

"For such a weak and small race? All we had was our faith and the hope it gave us of a better tomorrow. Losing that rallying point broke us." He sighed. "Suddenly, we were a people who worshipped nothing but a mess of lies."

"Even if it weren't true, the devotion you placed in your faith was still real."

"I know," Finn said, "but I'd grown up too fast and lost sight of what I wanted to do." He clenched his fist. "I was too caught up with wanting to be a hero and serving as a symbol that I forgot I had these hands of mine." He shook his head. "I've been barking orders for so long I lost touch with my own dream." He looked at me. "Watching you struggle was the reminder I needed."

"I'm glad to hear my suffering did you some good." Though I wasn't too sure what he was getting at.

"I'd learned to be more selfish," he said with a smile. "That's why"—he looked at Lili–"I'm going to help you."

"Lili is powerless and weak, if the Braver wishes for it, Lili can only nod and say yes."

Gareth stroked his beard. "A few days with Thomas will beat that defeatist attitude from her."

"Why are you talking about me like I'm some conditioning treatment?"

"What's conditioning?"

I wasn't even gonna bite onto that. "So how often does the infant dragon show up anyway?"

"Not very often," Gareth said.

"Silverbacks then!" Finn said.

For all the good my status did me, it still didn't give me any extraordinary sensory capabilities, so here I was a howling mass of black tendrils of mist and trying to fight those fast as hell pieces of shit practically blind.

 _Use the force, Tom!_

Not helping!

I hooked my pick onto the next body and latched on, stabbing into its back over and over with my short sword. The monkey struggled and rolled over, winding me but I kept on, burning through its strength with Despair.

Before I got started, I gave Gareth my great sword and buckler sword since I knew I wasn't getting out of this without wrangling anything. The punches and kicks I received were battering my sides, but the armor softened the blow regardless.

"I hate this floor so much!"

"Then learn!" Finn shouted.

Ugh. I hated these genius types. The silverback I was on eventually succumbed to its wounds and fell and was quickly replaced by a fresh monkey that kicked me in the gut.

I lost my lunch.

But I hooked onto its knee and cut off its other leg, before brutalizing its guts with my blades. Even now I was still maintaining that state of magic within, and every now and then a surge of strength would let me do like I just did. Little bursts of strength that did just enough to hit harder and faster, critical strikes, it seemed. But whether it was just a lucky hit or some shenanigans from my falna I wasn't sure.

I saw the next silverback's face in the mist—and I slapped it into the ground with the blunt of my pick. I stomped its head in before flying back into the thicket with a sore back and an even more sore face.

"Pay attention Thomas!" Finn said.

"Lili is not sure whether this familia is enjoying that person's pain."

"These moments are worth it," Gareth said.

"Don't teach her weird shit!"

I got punched in the face and ate dirt, but I quickly got up and latched on to the last bitch who did it and stabbed it over and over like my life depended on it.

"What level is he?!"

"Look well, Lili, soon enough, we'll also have you able to do that and fighting on the front lines," Finn said.

"That's not funny to Lili!"

A silverback got too close and had its face opened with my short sword. I wasn't even bothering with whether the bodies were getting cleaned up. What mattered right now was that all these damned monkeys died.

"Good!" Gareth said. "You have to hit them before they hit you!"

"How is he fighting for so long?"

"Because he has something he desperately needs to do," Finn said.

Their voices faded into the heat of battle.

And I fought on alone in the mists.

I took and gave so much more, each paid back threefold with my hammer and sword. I lost count of how many times I fell, of how many I killed, of how much my limbs burned, and with each step closer and closer to the brink, my magic brought me back to fight one monster more, over and over.

The weapons in my hands felt like they'd been welded into my bones, the thuds and scrapes against the beasts keeping in time with the rhythm of my breathing.

Catharsis, others might have called it. But here in the Dungeon I could just forget for once that I was somewhere I didn't belong and just let my actions tell my story.

Here was Thomas the lost, crying out against the silent Dungeon. It was a perverted companionship where the threat of death kept me from truly losing myself in the trance of each swing. The scent of blood filled my senses, and the endless white was like the blanket of sleep that beckoned me to a warm bed home.

The monsters fell.

I kept on.

I was beaten.

I stood back up.

Here there was no Thomas of Earth, no memories of what it was like to just enjoy an afternoon with a good book while basking under the air-conditioning. There was no peace here in the mundane, only the peace after the beasts lay dead at my feet. It was like trudging through the endless rain in the metro without a single awning to lean on. Like a familiar place that could've been home, yet also so alien that simply being here was already a pain.

And yet it was up to me to make the best of it.

Happiness was a choice, but it wasn't easy. However, that didn't mean the next best thing wasn't—couldn't be enough. If the rain wasn't going to end, then it was on me now to do something about it within my power. So, for the first time in days, I simply let go and took it as is.

I wanted to fight, so I fought.

I wanted to relax, so I relaxed.

I wanted to keep going, so I did.

My life wasn't going to stop just because of what happened, and I had to keep going regardless. Instead of wallowing in my sorrows, I chose to fill my heart with the things that went right. I had a place to come back to, friends that at least seemed like they sincerely cared, and a really weird goddess whom I still couldn't put a finger on.

There were so many things that could have gone wrong, and yet here I was doing better than I did back home. For now was what I tried to get on with, but that was a mistake. Because for now held the promise of a passing moment, and whatever was going on now was going on for long enough. What mattered then, was regardless of what was real or not, the ones in front of me were enough as they were.

If the storm wouldn't stop, then I just had to learn to dance in the rain.

Exhaustion finally caught up and I couldn't go any further. I fell on my back trying to catch my breath.

Three faces loomed over me.

"Is it finally over?" Lili said. "Mind down?"

"No," Gareth said. "That's not even close to how much magic Tom can pull out. His endurance is just low."

"That was low?"

Finn gave her a look.

"Lili sees," she said. "And he stood against so many silverbacks alone and for so long." She shook her head. "What _is_ he?"

Finn's lopsided smile annoyed me. "A friend, and a part of my familia."

Gareth knelt down beside my panting self and produced a glowing green potion. He brought it up to my lips and the herby infusion doused my body burning from exhaustion. I finally breathed a proper breath.

"And I want you to be a part of that," he said, facing her.

She stepped away, her face a mess of quickly changing expressions: confusion, sorrow, fear. "Why Lili?" she asked weakly. "There are just as many parrums as pitiful as Lili, so why Lili?" It was a desperate sort of sigh that had one foot in the grave. What was it that she'd gone through to let a sound like that escape those still so young lips?

"Because you will be the first of many," Finn said, matter-of-factly.

"So Lili was just lucky? Was that it?"

I took a deep breath and said, "So what if you were just lucky?"

"What?" Lili said. "Luck? It was just luck that suddenly Lili was going to have her life turned over for her by some knight in shining armor?"

"Yes, and what's so wrong with that?"

"W-wha?! Are you even listening to what you're saying? You're asking Lili if she can't just accept that everything will just magically be solved?"

"Sure," I said. "You never chose to be born to a hard life, right? The very day you were born and the people you were born to was pure dumb luck. Why couldn't you accept your life getting better just like that?"

"Because that would mean that all Lili had been doing all these years was for nothing!"

I frowned. "Haven't you been listening to a thing I've been saying since earlier?"

Finn put a hand up. I held back my tongue. "I believe what Thomas here meant to say is that accepting the help we're offering—"

"You forced her into accepting."

"Shut it!" Finn massaged the bridge of his nose and Lili shot me a dirty look. "As I was saying," he said with a sigh. "Accepting the help I want to give you doesn't make your efforts meaningless. The effort you put in has already run their course, and now, you happened upon the grace of someone like you wanting to make a difference."

"So how come you didn't do it before?" Lili asked with disgust.

"Because I was stupid," Finn said. "And because I've found someone even more stupid—"

"Hey!"

"—I realized now what I should've done a long time ago."

#

We went out of the Dungeon with Lili's absurdly large bag filled to bursting with stones. Of course, I was exaggerating because it was really only a medium sized sack that fetched a total purse of eighty-thousand in stones. The drop loot we left at Tsubaki's and we all went home to the manor with a slightly livelier Lili in tow.

To describe how she was after Finn's constant badgering was something between confusion and that too good to be true skepticism. She was holding onto the small sack filled with coins.

"T-this is unbelievable, to think Lili would ever get to hold this much Varis in her hands…"

"It's good to see at least _someone_ has a healthy sense of value."

"Spare me, Thomas," Finn said, "you may say you're normal and yet here you are going on regular massacres in the dungeon."

"Thomas has earned in the upper floors an amount a five-man party wouldn't normally even dream of… and to think he did so by, what was he even doing?" she asked Finn.

"If anything, its like he was pass parading himself."

Lili nodded. "His weapons and armor must be of very high quality?"

"You already know he has communication magic, yes?"

"Lili doesn't understand the value, but for the Loki familia to invest so much in Thomas must mean he is worth the trouble."

"Hey, you're already making jabs?"

"Lili blames you for what's happened to her so far, but Lili is still deciding whether to be angry or thankful." She sighed. "Lili is afraid to trust the honeyed words of the Braver, but at the same time Lili also has no power to resist."

"Wow, that's a very familiar train of thought."

"Misery loves company," Gareth said. "It's something Loki would always say."

"Wait, so you got me a companion to wallow in sorrow with?"

Finn was taken aback. "That's a horrible thing to say Thomas. I got _Lili_ a companion to wallow in sorrow with."

"I swear you can be just as bad as Loki."

 _Hey!_

We arrived home to a Loki that came out of nowhere, flying through the air and about to land on Lili. The parrum girl shrieked on seeing the flying perv and I was nice enough to step in and catch the idiot.

"Hey Loki."

"Oh, you're conscious today, that's good."

"I learn fast."

"You and your absurd status," Gareth said, shaking his head.

Finn presented Lili. "Here's the lady I wanted to join us."

Loki looked her up and down and Lili covered herself up even though she was fully clothed. This pervert's gaze had a tendency to do that, and I was thankful Orario didn't have any sexual harassment laws else the familia would've already crumbled under all the fines and levies. Satisfied, Loki stood up and looked Lili in the eyes nose to nose.

She grabbed the girl's chest.

I lifted Loki off her feet to get her away.

Lili fell on her butt with tears in her eyes.

"Thomas isn't the only one who needs to learn to read the mood," Gareth said.

"They both know how to," Finn said with a flat expression. "They just choose not to."

"He's not wrong," I said.

"I approve of your taste, Finn," Loki said with a thumbs-up. "A meek loli would make a fine addition to my harem."

"I think you meant a dedicated parrum would make a fine addition to the familia," Finn supplied.

"No, I'm pretty sure of what I said." Loki shrugged. "Whether they're a beastkin, elf, parrum, or dwarf, as long as they're my type, they can join the harem."

Finn held Lili by the shoulders. "You can ignore her whenever she goes into one of those, understood?"

Lili shook her stupor away. "W-why is the goddess so strange?"

"That's because Soma doesn't give two shits about anything," Loki said. "You can put me down now Thomas."

"Do you promise not to molest her without consent?"

"Urk, please don't trap me with that…"

I narrowed my eyes at her. " _Loki_."

"Hrrk, f-fine, I-I'll behave from now on."

"A goddess… is like that?"

"No, that's just Loki," Finn said. He turned to face our goddess. "I understand we might get fined for what I did, but it was about time I got off my cushy seat and set my feet back on the ground."

"That's a good look you have in your eyes," Loki said. "Seriously, can you put me down now, Thomas?" She laced her fingers behind my neck and brought her lips close to mine. " _Please_?"

I lowered her enough for her feet to touch the ground.

Loki smirked. "Does that mean I can expect an increase in parrums joining?"

Finn tilted his head left and right. "Perhaps, perhaps not. For now, I'll start where I can and see how much I can do."

"Good," Loki said. "I already asked for Freya's support in case we set a war game. It was a little creepy when she asked me earlier what I was doing when I spaced out. I told her about Thomas's magic and then your situation and she offered to help. Though she did ask me for a small favor in return, most likely involving Thomas." She stuck her tongue out.

I shrugged. Loki was the leader of the familia anyway, and if it came from her that she was looking out for the best for me, then I'll bet on her to make good on that. "Anything for you, Loki."

"Does that include helping me get Aiz to wear a bikini?"

"I'm a level one, Loki, not a miracle worker."

"But eventually, yes?"

"Is there an age of consent in Orario?"

"Don't sweat the details."

"Finn," Lili said, "are they always like this?"

"It helps to learn early how to tune them out."

Loki stood with both hands on her hips, and smiled a big one. "Anyway, it's about time, Finn."

"It's good to be back, Loki." He bowed low to her. "I have a good feeling today."

"But Lili does not," Lili said.

"Ah, well, first impressions are important after all."

"Hush, Thomas. We have to maintain a respectable air." Loki preened as she presented herself to her would be new child.

"That only works before you let your true colors come out."

"Bah, stingy humbug." She turned to Finn. "Leave dealing with Soma to me."

One thing led to another, and we found out Loki had more than prepared for the—future—entry of our new member.

The somber breakfast was ran over by a loud and lively dinner that undid the earlier awkwardness. Loki apparently prepared a feast to welcome the new member as well as Finn's resolve and we all ate well. People left and right hounded Lili with encouragements and apologies, the former for having Finn reach out to her and take her away, saying she didn't make a mistake in choosing—they didn't need to know—to join with us, and the latter about Loki's shenanigans and the troubles she'll end up facing with the pervert.

There were a lot of tips such as delaying having her status updated until the expedition came so Loki couldn't take her time running her hands all over her body, and the fact that such tips were being passed around meant that the offender wasn't in the least bit reflecting on her actions. There was also a very extensive discussion on when the best times to shower were and to stay away from the quiche specials on Tuesdays. What's surprising for me was that this world used a comparable calendar to back home when they could've had something that made much better sense like that one calendar with thirteen months and twenty-eight days for all.

Whatever, this place had magic.

Finn sat next to Lili, and Tione sat to his left. The amazoness was fixing the poor girl with intense looks while Tiona softened the blows by distracting her sister. Tiona however fell into a rut when Loki slapped Lili in the back and caused the latter to stick her chest out—something the former was so sensitive about not having much of. Tione eventually got fed up with her groaning sister and a table went flying.

Seeing her like that, it made sense now what Loki said about one's falna reflecting their personality. Tione's skill that made her stronger the angrier she got told me she had deep seated anger management issues, but she was stronger for it and it hasn't killed her yet so there was merit to falnas not leading their bearer to ruin.

What then gave me this magic called Despair? Even just having magic was already strange, and to also feel what it was like to move said magic within my body only added to the questions. The Enabler one… well, that was self-explanatory. How annoying.

I joined in with the dwarves in their toneless singing and danced with the beastkins around the fire in the courtyard. The elves were all being neat and tidy with their fancy eating and dainty habits, and the humans, there wasn't anything special to say about them. Raul was doing a one-man comedy show in the main hall's table though so that was something. But, Bete threw in enough insults that Gareth had to tie the guy up again and hang him by the castle's gates.

It was a full-on party when we just had one last night, and it looks like these people really partied where it counted. Once the drunks started climbing the walls though, that's when I decided to call it quits. I knocked back my mango juice and found Rakta tap dancing on one of the tables.

I threw my tankard out the window.

"Yep, that's enough shit for one night."

#

The following morning, it was the same painting of hell yesterday.

I sat somewhere tame, and was joined by Aiz, Tiona, and Lefiya.

"Glad to see you three didn't meet too much of a disaster."

"It was almost a repeat of the last night," Tiona said. "But it was a good thing I had to keep my sister from going on a rampage. She's still in our room too sick to come down.

"How often do these parties happen anyway?"

Aiz bit on a pancake. Whole. On her fork. I guess it was in line with the ditzy personality. "Loki would find any excuse to get people drunk."

The two others nodded.

"That does sound like her."

The next person to come down from the stairs I immediately recognized. Loki, however, went ahead and changed the parrum's wardrobe overnight. The cowed Lili in the hooded cloak was replaced by a still cowed Lili but this one now in a simple white halterneck that dangerously curved against the sides of Lili's chest, and a short skirt the same color as her hair. Really, who else could it have been? Either way, the girl was no longer wearing her ratty clothes and the beat-up old backpack was replaced with a leather harness similar to mine.

That was new.

"Lili!" I said, and saw the others on the nearby tables sink into their seats. "Over here."

Lili looked around and tip-toed about the groaning bodies. Rakta's ears were splayed against their table next to an Anakity with deeper bags than a travel suitcase. Cruz's spiky hair had seen better days and a lock was sticking out here and there, and Riine wasn't wearing her glasses. And if I were a betting man I would've risked at least a thousand on those forever getting lost.

The small girl joined our table without a tray on hand.

"Sorry," I said. "Come on, the breakfasts are buffet style and you can get whatever you want. I'll show you how."

I excused the both of us real quick, with Tiona the only one to act up when Lili's… assets swayed when she turned. The trip to the spreads didn't take long since Lili only wanted a bowl of porridge. I encouraged her to get more but she said she wasn't used to eating too much in the morning. Tione, literally crawled down from the stairs and I grabbed her some soup and a slice of soft bread.

"Tsk," Tione said.

The three of us took our seats and I wanted only to get out of there as fast as I could.

Lili ate slowly, taking tiny sips of her food after blowing on them for a while first. Tiona watched her go and Aiz and Lefiya seemed to take a liking to the girl's soft manners. It was interesting to see the small Lili beset on both sides by the elf and the ditz. Tiona, was catatonic. And Tione was too busy eating and powering through the pain to bother.

Riveria, Gareth, a newly bald Raul—when the hell did that happen?! Then came Lloyd, Arcs, and Anju, the inseparable trio all without eyebrows. Lloyd was a runarl, Arcs was a dwarf, and Anju was a dog-person. They were one of the cliques in the familia and were respectively a level four, and two level threes. Remilia and Kalos followed and thankfully didn't look that much worse for wear. Remi was an elf and Kalos was an amazoness, and both were level threes. Agata and Tina were also doing just dandy, and it was a relief to see they were alright.

Then came a brightly smiling Loki with a dumbstruck Finn.

"Guess what you people!" Loki screamed, and more than a few snarled her way—Tione included. "Finn here just reached level seven!"


	7. Vol 1 Chapter 6

**Volume 1**

 **Chapter 6**

At first, silence.

Then everyone went wild.

But not too wild since there were too many still writhing in pain.

Aiz was on him faster than I could blink, and Finn looked like a total idiot just grinning there and all wobbly-like. The next to come was a steeled Tione, then a very happy Gareth and a refined but just as excited Riveria. Everyone cheered, then writhed in pain, but kept cheering anyway, and I guess there was gonna be another party later. People were clapping him on the back or shaking his hands and there were a few women who threw themselves at him—Tione included. It was a scene that made me feel something itchy in the chest and smile without meaning to. It was too much of a scene not to feel anything.

What followed was a closed-door meeting with the executives and Loki—me and Lili included.

"H-how is Lili at an executive meeting?!" she said. Looking the part of the lost little lamb.

"I'm just as clueless as you are, Lili."

Bete, Tione, Tiona, Aiz, Gareth, Riveria, and Finn. They were the strongest members of the familia, and I guess now we were that bit higher now on the food chain with our very own level seven. I just hoped Freya didn't get any ideas with this, but well, we'd get through it somehow. Hopefully.

"Alright," Loki said, "we all know why we're here. Finn just reached level seven and the taxes will be increased on our asses."

" _What_?!" Even here audit comes to bite my ass?! "We need to pay _taxes_ based on how strong we are?!"

"Get with the program, Tom," Loki said, "the only permanent things in life are death and taxes."

I sank to my knees.

"What are _taxes_?" Gareth said.

"Tsk," Loki said.

"You _lied_ to me?! This is an outrage!"

Finn raised his hand. "That's a lot of rage there Thomas, care to share where it's coming from?"

"Taxes are these fees you pay just because you're alive," Loki said. "And Tom's world makes everyone pay it."

"Like paying for food?" Gareth said.

"No," I said. " _Worse_." He gave me a weird look. "Taxes are the evil that permeates my world. It's basically this thing our governments make us calculate for using these stupidly complicated forms that you would also get fined on if you made a mistake. And these taxes come with everything. Your food, your clothes, your use of water. Everything. You want to travel to somewhere far? Travel tax. You want to drink booze? Excise tax. You want to buy food? Value added tax. _Everything_ is taxed."

"That's horrible," Finn said with a frown.

Loki clapped her hands. "Back on topic people!"

"You started it?!" Tione said.

Finn tried placating her, but his stupid grin was yet to leave his face, and I guess that worked well enough to diffuse the amazoness. Tiona lifted me off the ground enough so I could set my feet gingerly on the floor. I was suddenly thankful she didn't do so to me yesterday in public. She was cool that way. Probably.

Aiz raised her hand. "I want to go with Thomas from now on."

"Absolutely _not_!" Gareth said. "No, no. No. That is a horrible horrible idea and I am against it with all my authority as an executive…" Gareth cleared his throat, but the damage was already dealt. "Finn here would be a more reasonable person to talk to."

Finn still had that stupid grin. "Sure Aiz, go with Thomas."

"That's right Ai—" Gareth glared at Finn. "I _trusted_ you."

Finn cupped his hear and leaned over at Gareth. "Who's the level seven again?"

Gareth grumbled before turning to Riveria. "He gets _one"_ —he stuck a finger out—"level and now he lords it over us! Damnable pest of a parrum!"

Finn didn't even bat an eye at Gareth's barb and Riveria was snickering like a teenager. Yeah, that was pretty creepy.

"Please spare Lili…"

Lili met Aiz's eyes. She turned back to Finn. "I want her with me too." She took Finn's hands in hers. "Lend them to me."

"We're not objects, Aiz."

She wasn't listening.

"Calm down for now," Loki said. "Or else I'm stopping the cooks from serving pancakes." Aiz went back to her spot after that. Loki cleared her throat. "You all should be the ones rubbing off on Thomas not the other way around."

"He annoys you," Finn said. "That's enough for me."

"Me too," Gareth added.

"You're _all_ crazy!" Bete said clutching his ears. "You people used to be noisy but now you're all just yammering non-stop."

Everyone there looked at Bete.

"Geez, edgy much?"

"What does that even mean?!" Bete held me off the ground by my shoulders and shook me about.

But Aiz stopped him from mixing the contents of my breakfast further, and to good reason too, else I might've covered him with a mix of scrambled eggs, bacon, and bile.

"Oh boy," Loki said. She was pinching the bridge of her nose. "I did this to myself didn't I?"

"Don't look at me, I'm not even sure what happened."

Loki face palmed, then brought her hands up. "Okay everyone, just calm down and let me say my piece?"

They all stopped the small bickering that popped up here and there and went back to their places in the semi-circle. "Thank you," Loki said with a graceful smile and curtsy.

I was about to say something when.

"Shut it!" Loki snapped her fingers at me and pointed. "Not a peep." But I just had to— "Nope. Shut it."

I pouted.

"Okay, so let me just say that Finn here levelled up this morning. He came to me saying he felt pretty good and so we updated, and lo and behold." She presented him with jazz hands. "Level seven."

"That lacked _so_ many important details."

Everyone and Lili nodded, but Bete didn't, Finn notwithstanding.

Loki punched the air and side kicked some unseen shadow twice before settling into a prayer position with closed eyes. She opened them a second later and steepled her fingers. "Finn decided on something big last night, and that, is what finally pushed him over the edge."

Finn scratched his head and smiled Lili's way—then the floor boards beneath Tione gave out. Poor guy.

"This is what I've been telling you all before," Loki said, "it's not about how much you kill or get brought to the brink of death—"

"But it helps someti—"

Loki grabbed my face in one hand.

"It's about staying true to yourselves and finding that thing that means something and gives whatever it is you're doing some meaning. How else do you think blacksmiths and medicine makers are able to gain exilia?"

"I see," Tiona said.

I broke away from Loki's grip. "You're the level fi—"

She grabbed my face again.

"A level up is what brings you closer to your goal, so what then is your goal? Finn here became a level six four years ago and hasn't moved since. And yet now he finally broke through. How do you think you should go about reaching that goal? Or better yet, what is the most important thing to you as a person? A falna is the accumulation of your life experiences and from it arises a certain something that makes you distinctly you. What is it that separates you from everyone else?

"Whenever you do something or kill a monster or rescue someone or decide anything, consider first how this adds to you as a person. And if you ask me, the best way to level up is to not give a damn about the numbers or the effort, but to just do as you would. There's no one rule to levelling up. There's only those who can reach that enlightenment and rise above their former selves, and those who can't."

"Aiz, to become strong is not enough. What is it that you want? Desire is good to have, but a consuming conviction is more likely to stifle you as a person. Don't fall into your impatience. And believe. Believe harder than everyone else that you can reach that place. And you can."

Loki opened her arms. "Nothing gives me more joy than seeing my children spread their wings. I just hope what I said to you today helps you later."

We all nodded as one.

"You can all leave now," Loki said. "The top executives and Lili, please stay behind. We'll discuss what our next steps will be. Aiz, you can take Thomas with you, but listen to me three times and listen well, no harm shall befall him. Alright?"

Aiz nodded, and I guess that meant my ass was hers for the day.

"Ah," Loki said, "let me update his status first. You've all seen him topless already anyway, come over here."

A few groans sounded out, but everyone else there took advantage of Loki updating my status to also have theirs done. When the results came out—as expected, no one else levelled up.

"What were you all thinking? That a speech could change your lives right here and now?" Loki laughed. "I'm a god but even I can't pull that many miracles out of my ass."

Each one of us—the top executives and Lili not included—came out with sheets of paper in our hands.

 **#**

 **Level 1**

Strength = G 228 - F 312

Endurance = G 264 - F 347

Dexterity = F 364 - E 482

Agility = H 181 - G 237

Magic = E 445 - D 589

Madness Spectrum = I

Tranquil Intervention = I

World Walker = I

Fated Actor = I

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Madness"

Saudade = An area of effect drain spell that takes the magic and life force contained in all within range and transfers it to the user. Targets stronger than the user are able to resist having their magic and life stolen. Has a five-meter radius, and a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Taken from the peace of home / I now stand beyond the veil / The aberrant demands reparation"

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

Enabler = Increases magic by an exceptional amount in a pinch and causes magic damage to siphon life force.

Mania = Increases endurance the longer one stays in battle and gradually wears off after.

#

We were just outside of Loki's room in the hallway.

"What is up with that bullshit status?!" Tione said, grabbing my sheet from my hands. "You got your falna _six_ days ago!"

Tiona stuck her face next to her sister's and read through the paper that showed bared my person to them. Well, no not really. Those magic and skill names were too edgy, totally not me at all. Which was even more concerning. Yeah, I'm probably pretty fucked.

"Thomas," Aiz said, "why do you want to go home so badly?"

That was a strange question to ask, but it was honest and sincere. Wasn't it obvious though? "Because I want to see my friends and family again, and also because that's the place I call my home. I hope I'm not hurting anyone's feelings when I say I really really just want to get back. Just my status already shows how much I don't belong here, I'm different. That's all it is."

"You don't like it here?" Aiz tilted her head at me.

"To want to go back home doesn't mean I have to hate where I am right now. It pains me to be here, but at the same time I can't deny the fact that magic is pretty darn freakin' awesome! I mean dude, I can _cover_ myself in shadows! That's pretty badass—though not exactly cool and is really kinda cringey because of how chuuni it is…"

"What's chuuni?" Tiona asked.

"Just get on with the answer already!" Bete said.

We all looked at him. I shrugged. "I _am_ enjoying my time here, but I can't wholeheartedly pray that I can stay forever. I hope I can leave sooner, but it means paying the price of leaving you all. I don't know how you all feel about me—except maybe Bete."

"Hey!"

"But let me say that it won't be as easy as I hoped to leave." I looked each of them in the eyes. "Right now, we're not really friends just yet." Tiona smiled something sad. "Not at _that_ level at least. I mean hey, you don't know my favorite color, right?"

"I thought it was red like the blood of your enemies?" Tione said with a smirk.

"It's actually green," I said, "and the same shade as killer ant blood."

"Killer ants don't have green blood," Tiona said. "It's black."

"Well, uhh, forest green is my favorite color. There, a freebie. But I hope that got the idea through?"

Aiz brought a finger to her lips. "I think so."

"Nice." I stretched my back and twisted against the sun. "So, Dungeon time?"

"You lot do what you want," Bete said. He turned his back on us and went down the stairs.

"See you around, Bete." He didn't even wave back, and now he just came off as strangely insincere. Was it just how he was?

We watched him leave and kudos to him for not looking back.

"We need to pay off some debts," Aiz said. She looked down, fingers twiddling idly. "I need forty million."

I wanted to say something but knew better than to give that absurd value the time of day. This economy was bullshit. "That's a lot of money."

Tiona beamed. "And _I_ need one hundred and twenty." She stuck what little chest she had forward.

"That's not something to be proud of," Tione said.

"With that said, you're coming with us, Thomas." Tiona nodded to herself.

Tione crossed her arms. "Are we sure we want to do that?" She rubbed her chin. "We need to go deeper to make our returns worth the effort, so we'll need to hunt on the thirtieth floor and lower at least." She raised a brow at me. "The deep floors are nothing like where you've been all this while, Thomas."

I shrugged. "It's still a chance to finish off a high-level monster."

"I'm not so sure about this," Tione said. She turned to her sister. "Didn't it come from you that he'd only get in the way?"

Tiona scratched her cheek. "Uhh, umm. Then how about we take a few more people with us and if Thomas is in too much danger then we can return to the eighteenth floor with the others, then us executives will keep going and Thomas can come up to a higher floor with them?"

"I think we can do that," Tione said.

Loki stuck her head out the door. "Gareth will be going with you to be sure. This is a good chance for Thomas to learn more about the Dungeon before going on the real thing. Just give us a few more minutes and we'll finish up."

We went down to the living room and checked for who else might want to go. Riine, Rakta, and Raul were thinking of going down themselves, and they already got Alicia, Narvi, and Cruz to come with them. However, they wanted to take their time around the twentieth floor. It was too high up for Tiona and Aiz's needs, though arguably, it would've been better for me to go with them. That is, if any of them were willing to take the risk of hauling my weak ass.

I was strong for a level one, they gave me that. But they weren't too sure how I'd do against the monsters in the middle floors down. The lowest I'd gone on my own was the twelfth. Riine, the closest one to me in that group, a level two, had already gone as deep as the fiftieth floor. She was a healer though, so her excuse was necessity like mine. But even then, she could still hand my ass to me three ways with one hand tied behind her.

The change in level was just that, to be greater than what we were like Loki said.

Eventually, our group was finally composed of a fair number: Aiz, Tione, Tiona, Lefiya, Elfy, Anakity, and then Gareth and me. The gender ratio was obviously skewed towards the women, and that was the same trend in the familia as a whole. It was Loki, and that was enough of an explanation. Freya's familia was skewed more towards the men so I guess the two strongest familias at least balanced out somewhat.

When the executives finished up their game plan for dealing with the Soma familia, Gareth met up with our group with a not so pleasant surprise.

"We'll be making the declaration of our intent with Soma familia today," he said. He turned to me. "Thomas, we'll hold off on going down into the dungeon for now so I can guard the manor."

Tione nodded. "It's for the best, I can't make the same promise to always be able to save his ass no matter what." She grimaced my way. "Not that I don't like you, Thomas. I mean you _know_ I don't, but you're still a member of the familia."

"Gee, that was uplifting." I turned to Gareth. One day was still one day, and one could say it wouldn't make a difference in the long run but to me, it would. And that was what mattered. "I understand."

"But?" he asked with a skeptical look.

"If it's possible can I go down solo? I promise I won't go lower than the twelfth floor."

Gareth frowned. "You tend to go overboard, Thomas."

"You mean I _strive_ to try and exceed my limits."

"I know what I said." He gave me the stink eye. "I've been the one hauling your ass back to the manor every time."

Aiz nodded. "He just needs to get home."

The weight of the years bore down on how hard Gareth rolled his eyes at that. He gave Aiz the same look he gave me.

Aiz frowned. "N-no?"

The dwarf narrowed his eyes. "Good guess."

The blonde dejectedly hung her head, and Lefiya was only too happy to give her a comforting back rub. I met Tiona's eyes. She nudged her head at the spectacle and huffed, and I replied with a shrug.

Okay, maybe it wasn't too bad to take a day off. After all, Gareth's been my safety line all this while. However, the burning need to make a difference continued to lap at my patience. I couldn't—wouldn't stop me from wanting to get stronger… but it came from Loki herself. To mindlessly grind away wasn't what I needed but to instead grow past who I currently was.

That didn't mean I couldn't get stronger as I thought it through though.

"I'm not sure I can sit still long enough for that."

"Then think of this as a mission," Gareth said. "We aren't going to go down into the Dungeon to wait, but we're not going down because we have else something to do here." He met my gaze. "Something _you_ helped move. Don't you think that also merits something to you as a person?"

Ugh. I hated it when people turned the same blade of reason against me. "I don't want to accept… but Loki trusts you to look out for what's best for me."

 _And besides Tom, this way we can finally get some proper use out of that magic of yours._

What do you mean?

"It means," Loki said. She was standing by the stairs together with Finn and Lili. "We'll use it for a little something less adventurer-like."

Gareth narrowed his eyes at her, then looked at Finn. After the level, Finn now had a sort of quality to him that wasn't quite the same as Ottar's. The King had this sort of solid and immovable feeling, like the rest of Orario could come crashing down his head and he'd still be fine. Finn though, he felt more like the sea lapping against the shore. He was there, and yet at the same time there was so much more beneath.

"I'm not even gonna grace that with a guess."

#

In hindsight, I really should have seen this coming.

I was currently on the lookout from the rooftop overlooking the Soma familia home together with a troop of mages and our vanguard. The Ironhand brothers, three dwarves of particularly fiery personalities and even shittier alcohol tolerances guarded the rear: Daffyd, Cadoc, and Brynmor, all didn't look the part of the rogue, but they were the ones to bring my sorry ass up here without so much as a shingle out of place. They were armed with short swords to favor speed and handling over power, and their bucklers were steady in their hands.

Behind us were Claire, Cynthia, Arcs, and Lloyd with their scepters and wands ready to cast at a moment's notice. They were reserved usually for the mage barrage squad and regularly chanted together with Riveria during their salvos. Claire and Cynthia were elves, while Arcs was a runarl, and Lloyd was a human like me.

We took the backstreets here to get to where we were perched, and as the only level one in this party of eight, I was severely outmatched in terms of sheer firepower. I was really just the trigger.

 _We're in, Tom. Over._

Copy that, keep us posted. Over.

I looked back at the others and gave them a thumb up. We were here to serve as a contingency in case Loki's threats fell on deaf ears. Particularly because Soma was a total scrub who didn't give two shits about anything besides moonshining. Granted the guy made good enough shit to get Loki to seriously reconsider making such a bold move in case he held a grudge and stopped selling her her fix.

Without surprise, the lady had her issues.

Or maybe it was all the gods? The only normal god I'd ever met had been Hephaestus, and that barely counted as interaction since we only talked about a few rumors. Hestia, well, she was obviously someone with a grudge against Aiz for some reason. And, Freya was a can of worms I didn't even wanna come near within ten feet of.

Loki came to the Soma familia base with Finn, Riveria, Bete, and Lili, while Gareth stayed at home to castle-sit. One could never be too sure with whom Soma might have under his thumb with such a valued commodity, and there were enough gods simply out to get a laugh that they could just as easily join in for the shits and giggles.

The plan was simple: come in, get Soma to release Lili, pay off the scrub so he shut his mouth, and pray the Guild didn't fine our asses to oblivion. That last part of the plan was the absolute worst that could happen since we were the ones instigating the aggression, regardless of how good a reason ours was for making the ruckus. In anticipation then of that, Loki had everyone else in the familia non-essential to the protection of the manor dive into at least the twentieth floor to focus on making as much cash as we could. At worst, we'd have some funds to fall back on. And at best, we'd have a much nicer cushion once the expenses raked in for the expedition.

We also made sure to debrief Lili on what she'd suffered as a member, and well, it wasn't pretty. Suffice to say, I was already quite amazed at how the dinghy house that'd seen better days wasn't on fire yet.

Warm sunlight graced us waiting by the roof, and our light leathers blended in with the stone fired tiles. It helped that buildings besides Babel didn't reach as high, and it was a common fault of us humanoid species that we barely looked up. A plus though was how it wasn't as horrible as a day out in the city under the sun. Here, it was a like a walk in the park as opposed to an asphalt griddle gauntlet.

It was a familiar feeling to be out in the field like this, but I never really got to be part of any major operations back home.

 _Heads up Tom, we just met with the captain of the familia._

I signed to the others to get ready, and our casters very slowly dragged out their beginning verses one at a time. The reason being we'd ensure some level of overlap between the chants, so they could release magic one after the other as opposed to one big hit. Bete, Riveria, and Finn were there to protect the two, but we didn't want to take any chances. Our magic barrage was only to serve as a distraction should things go awry.

The Ironhand trio inched closer to the mages, ready to defend. Unfortunately, magic here gave off these tell-tale signs of mind—better called mana, usage. Essentially, it was this tingling sensation of something moving towards the direction of the caster currently chanting. It was a feeling Riveria made sure all us casters in the familia were familiar with because in the event of a magic versus magic scenario, learning the general direction of where someone was chanting from was a much better advantage as opposed to getting lost in the heat of battle.

 _We're in a meeting with their captain, Zanis something, but Soma's not showing up._

Claire was the first to chant and also the first to stop it on her last verse. All of us in the squad had a number of mind restoration potions so we could keep up this waiting and wasting game.

 _Finn just demanded to see their god._

A great wave crashed against the shore.

The others with me flinched at that—something, and our mages all lost their focus and broke their chants at the same time. Likewise, the people below also all stopped in their tracks and looked around for something, and a lot of clueless shakes of the head propagated through the crowd.

 _Holy crap that was awesome!_

Dude, we felt that all the way from over here. Did Finn just flip off?

 _You should see this Zanis guy! He just pissed his pants._

Do you think Freya and Ottar also felt that?

 _Don't ruin the moment._

Dude.

 _Bruh._

Fine.

 _Soma just came out. And the guy's seen some better days. He's practically dressed in rags!_

Focus.

The Ironhands checked in with everyone and okay hand signals came their way.

" _That was Finn_ ," I risked whispering.

The others nodded, and the mages restarted their cascading chants to restart our covering barrage preparations.

We ended up stopping the chants, give us thirty seconds to restart coverage. Over.

 _No problem. Soma's just being a little bitch. He wants Finn to have a drink of his Soma to prove he has the strength or some bullshit. Standby, I'm starting to get pissed off. If I give the order, smoke the place._

Understood.

I raised my hand to signal the mages to increase their speed. We were keeping well hidden away from the public's eye to avoid getting reported to the guild, though our masks ought to be enough to give us some leeway with hiding our identities. Magic more or less blended into the same general elements and a person shooting out ice flowers was nearly indistinguishable from someone shooting ice spears given enough chaos. Avoiding talking, however, was a precaution against any nearby first-class adventurers who might have keen enough senses to hear us.

Not to mention any mages curious enough to check out a group of spell casters congregated somewhere.

Another wave crashed against the shore, this one stronger than before. People yelped below, but we were prepared this time.

 _Finn took the drink and is alright. I wanted to stop him, but he wanted to prove a point._

Burn their place down?

 _Not yet, Soma's listening now. He just asked Lili why she wanted to leave. This might take a while._

Copy that, we'll continue with the coverage.

Four rounds of sickeningly bitter potions _each_ for the casters later, and Loki and her retinue finally came out of the house without a hair out of place, and one locked status lighter. There was nothing burning in the house, and neither was Bete covered in blood nor was Finn dismembering people left and right. This was a success.

 _Mission complete, Tom. Scatter and meet back at the manor._

Copy that, we'll see you all back home.

I signaled to the others that it was a success and the mages stopped their chanting before taking one last long drink of potion. Our masked faces nodded to one another as we skulked towards the window sills we climbed to get here. Brynmor kept watch of any suspicious movements towards us, but no warnings came even after we cleared the roof.

Daffyd was the first on the ground, landing with a quiet thud uncharacteristic of a clumsy dwarf. It was reassuring having two level fours with us, Daffyd and Claire, because it meant we had respectable enough fire power in case something went really bad. On that note, I was pretty sure with Ottar and Finn being the only level sevens meant level six was rare enough to be isolated to a few large familias. After all, we only had three. Well, two now. This meant that a majority of the real powers in Orario besides were composed of the level fives and fours. The Loki familia had four level fives under its belt, and fourteen level fours, and the rest of the familia was made up of the level threes and twos. An exception then was us level ones, since there were only three of us. Four, if Lili was already counted.

The mages went first, Claire, Cynthia, Lloyd, and Arcs all took turns at going down the roof and landing in Daffyd's arms.

I went next, dropping from the roof for a brief while before coming to a gentle stop. He set me on the ground and Claire passed a tunic and robe we set aside earlier before coming up. Cadoc and Brynmor followed with slightly louder thuds, and Claire passed them handfuls of clothes as well.

We all changed there and then without giving a single shit who saw what. And split up into four, with me together with Daffyd, Claire, and Arcs. The other group would make their way West and us North, and we'd all meet back up in the Hostess of Fertility first before changing into another set of clothes another group from the familia was waiting with.

It was a convoluted plan, but it was a necessary precaution given people like Bete who could sniff out us no goods, and anyone good enough to find our group might've had good reason to intercept. Granted, this really could've been done a bit more openly, but I didn't want to risk anyone's identity in case we had to pull something. Because the guild sanctions would've bled us dry.

Our group started walking and entered the streets, blending into the bustling crowd.

With so many people walking to and from without any attention to what direction they were all walking to or which side they were on. Disappearing into the masses was a lot easier than I thought. Orario just didn't give a shit it seemed, be it with what its people did or how they went about their daily lives. It was nice how uneventful the trip was, and since Daffyd didn't notify us of anyone following, I was willing to call it a success this early on.

Loki and company were heading straight home, but I didn't know anything about Brynmor's group. With hope, they also didn't run into any snags. Things were going well, and we were already halfway to the Hostess of Fertility.

"Thomas," Daffyd said. He was scratching his bearded chin. "Remind me to never get on your bad side."

"Eh? What brought that out?"

Claire shook her head, blonde pigtails swaying in the air. "How long did it take you to think of something like that?"

"Of what?"

"Of what we just did," Arcs said with an uneasy smile.

"Cascading chants?" Claire said. "That was a very new experience than what we were used to, and to think magic could be used that way."

"As a cover?"

"Yes," Arcs said. "Magic is the trump card we use to end battles, not the chaff to _ease_ the fight."

"And all this skulking around," Daffyd said with a frown. "It's so strange how nothing happened."

That last one wasn't too hard to accept. Sure, magic could be detected as it was being chanted, but that relied on two very important things: first, was if we were the only ones trying to cast magic in the middle of the city; and second, if anyone actually gave enough of a crap. For the first point, I was banking on there being so many magic appliances in Orario that people would just blame the tingling on some appliance of higher than normal potency. And the second, how likely was it that someone was chanting magic outside of the dungeon? And on that note, how many would have the balls to speak out?

If we got home without a hitch, then I was willing to bet Orario had a pretty high tolerance for unnatural shenanigans. What I'd give for a tool to turn invisible though. We already had magical appliances and unbreakable swords after all, how hard could it be to make an invisibility cloak? Though it'd be nice if said cloak could also mask scents and sounds and heat too. Even better if even magic signatures could be masked.

That'd be a total game changer though, but not really for the best of reasons.

Daffyd caught something from the air. He showed it to us: a crumpled piece of paper. I felt my bowels sink to my toes. Somebody found us.

We looked at each other and he nodded before starting to open it.

"No sudden movements," I said with a smile. "Just keep walking."

Arcs shrugged with a sigh, and Claire frowned before saying something about there not being enough good places for clothes. Our steps kept on with a grim determination.

Daffyd unfurled the sheet and read out not too loud, " _Congratulations on a job well done, Loki familia. If you'd be so kind, I'd like to offer my own congratulations._ "

We looked around, and lo and behold, there was a terribly suspicious person all in black waving to us from a ways away by another side street. It didn't take any telepathy for all of us to agree on the next course of action.

Heads up Loki, someone followed my group.

 _Where are you?_

Halfway to the Hostess from Babel along Adventurer's Way.

 _I'll send Finn._

That'd be appreciated. The target is a guy in all black robes. We'll meet up with him by the right side of the main street by the side alleys.

 _Take care, Tom._

Cold sweat trailed down my back and soaked my feet as we walked closer to the beckoning figure. What we were doing may not have been the best idea, but it was what we did I guess that was the real crux of the issue. It was the price we paid for insuring the negotiations, but making trouble here made no sense whatsoever. Blackmail perhaps? If so, then this guy probably had backup nearby.

We arrived to where the guy called us to, and a wave of their hand beckoned us further into the alley. Daffyd took point followed by Arcs, then me, then Claire. The alley opened to a small space just large enough for us all to see eye to eye—or in this case, see the black robe's masked face.

"I apologize for calling out to you like this," robes said with a smooth and deep voice. "But you must understand how difficult it is to appear in such"—he gestured at himself—"drab clothes."

I nodded. "I understand, not a lot of people go for the tall, dark, and lanky."

"Unfortunately," robes said. "I take it you are wondering why you're here?"

"And I take it you'll be telling us soon?"

"A fair assessment," robes said.

Claire shifted from foot to foot, and slowly, Daffyd's hand inched for his blade.

"I would appreciate it if we could avoid a fight?" He brought his gloved hands up to indicate he had nothing on him, but it was suspicious how his loose sleeves didn't roll down.

"Please understand it's not easy for _us_ to bring ourselves to trust any of your words."

"I understand," he said with a bow. "Now then, first, congratulations are in order." He clapped without any sounds. "If I weren't who I was, it would've been terribly difficult to follow you after that _interesting_ performance."

"I'm sorry but I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please," robes said, "let's not mince words here, _Thomas_."

Dude knows my name.

 _Well, shit._

Well if that didn't want to make me shit my pants. The others tensed, and I took a deep breath to try and shake off the surprise. "Please don't tell me something cliché like: _Tom, I am your father_."

Robes crossed his arms. "Perhaps I should have gone with the other group…"

Daffyd gave me the stink eye.

I cleared my throat. "Err, please continue."

"Thank you," robes said. "If you'd be so kind as to send this message to your captain, I would highly appreciate it."

"It's fine," a familiar tenor said.

Robes looked up.

"You can tell me yourself," Finn said.

If robes freaked out, then he made a good show of not giving a shit.

Holy crap, Loki, he made it!

 _I want that bastard tied up and presented to me on a silver platter._

Noted.

"A pleasure to meet the Braver." He bowed.

"And to whom do I owe the pleasure?" Finn asked with an angelic smile.

"You may call me Fels," he said.

Finn didn't come down from his vantage, forcing Fels to look up to him—and to take his eyes off us. Daffyd already had his hand on his dagger, and I was ready to bust out Despair in the hopes of disabling the guy before he got away. Regardless of whether the mental statuses took hold, the weakening effect was still something to behold.

"Nice to meet you Fels," Finn said. His eyes lost their light. " _Now_ _talk_."

The pressure that reached my toes was enough to make me want to vomit, and finally, Fels's unshakeable visage twitched. "I was to offer a quest in need of your services, and the payout will more than help with your coming expedition."

"Am I to assume you're from the guild?" Finn said.

"If it makes you feel better," Fels said with a chuckle. He produced a folded piece of paper from his robes and held it out.

Careful and cautious, I stepped out to take it, my magic ready to burst at a moment's notice.

"I mean you no harm, Thomas," he said.

I took the paper from him.

Fels turned to Finn. "Please read it in the company of your goddess, she would want to see the contents of that. I will arrange for the payment to be made once the mission is accomplished. Please hurry, time is of the essence."

And just like that, he disappeared in a cloud of shadows.

Finn dropped from the roof to where Fels stood and swept the spot with a kick. He frowned. "I can't sense him anymore." He looked at me. "Shadows?"

I shook my head. "That looked like teleportation magic to me, and sorry, I couldn't feel much from it." What went without saying was that the guy could be the link to what I needed to implicate the guild. But then again, if we had a teleporter then that could also just as easily mean anyone. At best though, it meant teleportation was possible. And I wanted it.

Finn bit his thumb. "Let's get the others quickly and head home."

We didn't even bother anymore with the precautions and had everyone run for the manor, with Daffyd breaking off to get the others waiting at the Hostess. Finn carried me on his back. Indignation aside, we had something huge in our hands. As Finn ran, I opened the letter.

Loki, heads up, here's the message.

"We have an urgent matter in Rivira. We suspect that someone who has killed a level four without contest is currently there and in pursuit of a package that was in the victim's possession. The reward is five hundred million Varis, and we will consider the quest accepted once you retrieve the yellow flag near the keystone of the Dungeon entrance archway. We will arrange for the payment in exchange for the package at a later date. The package is a large pearl wrapped in cloth."

Got all that?

 _"_ Loki," I said. It was a simple system we devised to indicate who was talking through me at the time. "What you read fits what Riine and Narvi just told us."

"What's that?" Finn said.

"Loki. There was a murder in Rivira and the place is in chaos right now. Bors is shaking down everyone in the town to find the culprit."

"Thomas. That's not gonna work, he just ended up giving the killer a time limit."

"I agree," Finn said, "I'll need Riveria and Bete at least to come with me. Anyone else in the eighteenth floor?"

"Loki. None from us. Aiz and the others went ahead, Riine and Narvi volunteered to relay the message so we'd know."

"Thomas. You guys think this could be related to that terrorist attack?"

We arrived at the manor with Bete, Riveria, Riine, and Narvi waiting with our gear. Loki was also there with Gareth and Riine. I received my equipment and got changed into the sturdier armor and secured everything into place with my harness and weapons. Gareth didn't bother with my great sword for now in favor of a proper shield.

"I'm deciding against my better judgement to let you go with them," Loki said.

"I know, but I need to anyway. Who else would keep their sorry asses safe from the horrors of the Dungeon?"

Loki cuffed me on the head before saying, "Finn, you make sure this little shit comes back alive, alright?"

He nodded, and said, "Understood, we'll head there as fast as we could. Narvi will guard Thomas, and Riveria, Bete, and I will move to engage. We'll relay whatever we find to Thomas."

"I still don't like this," Gareth said.

"Neither do I." But that wasn't the whole truth. However, now wasn't the time to screw around. We had to do the bidding of some stranger who knew my name and identified my group from our time near the Soma familia. That was either the work of a powerful information network or a dedicated mark on me. There were other possibilities however, but right now, those were the two most feasible explanations. And neither were any good.

Not to mention I was gonna go down to some floor I clearly wasn't strong enough for and had no prior experience with without a proper plan for any back up.

"We'll form up reinforcements as people come back," Loki said. "I'll tell you when we can send Daffyd and the rest at our soonest." Loki sighed. "The earlier we get this over with the better."

Our group of five nodded.

#

We entered the Dungeon with dust clouds behind our backs.

Bete was the one carrying me this time while Finn took point. We were in a linear formation with Finn in front, followed by Bete and me, then Riveria, and finally Narvi at the very back. Our vanguard batted away any monsters that got in our path with his spear as the ground blurred beneath me.

Wind whipped against my face and Bete didn't care much for making the ride any easier.

"We're heading straight for the eighteenth," Finn said. "Bete, try not to kill Thomas on the way."

"Tsk," my untrustworthy steed said.

"The plan is to retrieve the package but expect trouble. That Fels character knew exactly what he was asking for when he went to us, and I'm not too happy learning they needed _my_ help specifically."

"Clear," everyone said.

"Thomas, no shenanigans alright?" Finn said.

"I swear."

We passed by the occasional party of adventurers down the entrance but soon enough broke away as we went deeper in. The familiar twists and turns of the first floor melted away under the four's blinding pace. We easily reached the stairs in a minute or so and together they vaulted for the length of the descent, landing with practiced ease down the second floor and tearing the ground up some more. The second floor became the third, and that became the fourth.

Each level above only took a couple or so minutes and a few sweeps of Finn's spear to bat away the monster that got in our way.

The fifth floor was taking longer, but only because of sheer size. There were a few parties fighting valiantly along the side paths, and a gathering of monsters from a nearby room, but all of that we simply ran from faster and faster away. Bete easily kept up with Finn and Riveria despite the load he carried, and thankfully Narvi wasn't left behind.

 _Thomas, I sent Daffyd and others to you, they'll get to the eighteenth in a bit. Wait with Narvi at the mouth of the entrance._

Copy that. Reporting it to the others now.

 _Thank you._

"I received a message from Loki, Daffyd and the others are coming from behind. They should arrive a couple more minutes behind us."

"Good," Finn said. He kicked a stray stalagmite into a group of war shadows and blew them all away, allowing us to pass through the crowd without an issue.

The fifth gave way to the sixth, the best sign being the change in hue of the floors. Frog shooters were thrown around, killer ants bit the dust, and needle rabbits weren't even a concern. The monsters tried their best to give Finn even a moment's delay but all they got were their lives—or non-lives taken from them. Finn's spear was a blur in his hands, and the few flashes I managed to see in his flurries all led to a number of monsters dead in one sweep.

The seventh floor didn't even get to create a monster parade like I usually did, and even with the faster spawning of killer ants did everything still die against the storm of blades that was Finn. Riveria also occasionally contributed to our point man, stabbing monsters in the face with her trusted and ornate staff.

Next was the eighth floor, then the ninth as soon as we finished that. The smarter goblins and kobolds weren't even a match for our group, and again everything that didn't die got a face full of ground or wall, which eve surface was more convenient at the time.

"Finn?" I said. "Are you sure you can keep killing everything in front of you?"

"It's alright," he said. "They aren't tiring me out. And think me doing this to get used to my body—things have changed, it seems." At that he punched a goblin that literally exploded. And so did the next kobold and goblin.

"It happens sometimes after a level up," Riveria said. "It takes some time to get your bearings again after spending a lot of time on that level. And a level up brings out not just another number but, but also a certain increase in quality to the adventurer."

Finn kept his one-man massacre up, and the ninth floor came into view. It was a simple place with nothing special to it and besides its size, the faster spawning of the smarter goblins and kobolds still didn't mean they were smart enough to turn tail and run like hell. The tenth floor came not a moment too soon.

Orcs died as they rose, and hard armoreds barely twitched before they all died to Finn's spear. The mists surrounding us seemed to stay away from our level seven, or was it that he was simply moving so fast the condensation literally couldn't touch him?

 _Thomas, where are you guys now?_

Tenth floor, almost to the eleventh. Sup?

 _That Fels character, you said he teleported?_

I think so, he just up and disappeared. And Finn couldn't feel him anymore.

 _I see. That's all then._

We reached the eleventh floor shortly. The infant dragon was nowhere to be seen. And so it was that we simply tore through the open fields.

The twelfth floor was still the same gloomy area with shit visibility but all that didn't even faze the group I was with. We crossed the mists with reckless abandon, and apes died left and right as Finn didn't even let a single one get near our group. The reach of his spear was just that extensive, and his handling even more so.

Soon enough, I saw the stairs I had yet to reach.

The thirteenth floor.

We jumped down and landed at a run.

Where the first through ninth floors were the stereotypical cave networks and semi-structured walls, and the tenth through twelfth were the domed open field floors, the thirteenth was instead this sprawling mess of stairs, halls, and stone formations. There were ledges along the walls that served like floors within the floors, and no doubt there weren't just open areas.

On the floor above, Finn just swatted the monsters away when he could and killed only whatever got in our way.

A large rabbit hopping on two legs was split in two together with the large dog with it, then another dog, then another. This went on for all the other monsters we met, and it took only a second to figure out. A plume of flames came our way, breathed out by one of the dogs but it died after eating a stalactite.

He was really enjoying breaking stuff off in the Dungeon.

The rabbits held these one-handed stone axes and Finn would grab the opportunity to take some for himself after each wave he killed—so he could throw them back around to the monsters still blocking our path.

We pushed straight through the halls for what felt like a solid effort of at least twenty minutes of dedicated running. We then made a few dizzying turns before reaching a large staircase, this one for the fourteenth even if I didn't know better. And good lord, even without my phone, all that went on from the first to now was still not even an hour long. Whereas I would've needed at least a solid three or four hours just to get through.

The fourteenth floor was an even messier jumble of stone and jagged edges.

A new monster also showed up, this one a large worm with rows of teeth. It was easily large enough to swallow a person whole, and what's worse was how they effortlessly buried into and out of the ground without warning. Together with the rabbits and dogs though, it was a nightmare to think of just having to guard between the axe wielding rabbits, the fire breath, and the surprise worms.

We reached the stairs to the fifteenth in fifteen or so minutes.

They jumped down again and first thing I saw was a buff as hell minotaur wielding a stone halberd—but it was also easily bisected by Finn's spear. And quickly replaced by another five behind. They were absolutely relentless with how fast they spawned though, and the occasional dog was an unwelcome sight since they appeared safe and well behind the brutes. The minotaur's thick hides powered through the doggy flame breath, and more than once were we caught in the after wash of fire.

Rather, I was caught in the wash of fire. The people I were with were high levelled enough to just shrug off the attacks. I had to put out my burning hair each time. That fire was gonna be a problem in the future, and those minotaurs came at a rate way faster than even the goblins from the eighth and ninth floors.

The sixteenth floor came without warning, the gradual slope barely registering the change from the previous floor.

Here, minotaurs spawned even faster, coming in droves and easily forming a crowd—or was it a herd? They easily formed a monster party within a minute or so of uncontested spawning, but the dogs all but stopped spawning though so that was a small mercy.

However, winged tigers took their place. And they were the size of horses and were just as tall as the bipedal minotaurs _on all fours._

These took a bit more oomph from Finn's spear, but even then, they still fell like flies against his strength. Here though, Narvi started to have to contribute to the fighting since Bete was more concerned with making sure I didn't hit the ground at speeds mortal legs normally didn't have any right of keeping pace with.

Lygerfangs, Riveria called them. But I called them nightmares. Once I reached back here though, I'd make sure to ride of those flying things just for the heck of it.

Then, then came the seventeenth floor, and gone were the mazes of stone, and replaced with a wide expanse of a whole lot of nothing and rocks. The ground was uneven and jagged, and just walking already looked like a chore. Off in the distance was a large arched hole against a pearlescent wall of light and ranks upon ranks of winged tigers and minotaurs spawned to block the way, and still they all fell like meat to the grinder.

All this killing of monsters well beyond the floors I frequented easily meant an income of a few hundred thousand each run, but how much did it really take to make a killing? Was a party of four or so an efficient size? Did Loki and my estimation of efficient hunting parties really pan out? And was everyone okay even with this sudden fuck up with Fels and the eighteenth floor's town?

There were too many questions that would only birth even more questions.

We easily passed through the arch—and after a while of dimmed brilliance, saw a lush forest illuminated by a chandelier of colossal glowing crystals that shone like the sun. And, in the middle of it all was an enormous tree that reached for the sky. I mean, ceiling.

And all that, however, was currently being overrun with gigantic plant monsters in vibrant colors that stood out against the normal vegetation.

The party stopped in its tracks.

"These are those same monsters from the sewers," Bete said. He spat.

"Narvi, Thomas," Finn said. "Prepare to fall back in case things get serious."

I got off Bete's back and settled my feet on this floor I haven't earned the right to stand on yet. The grass beneath our feet was soft, and the ground was loose soil underneath. All around was the fresh smell of spring time and save for the titanic rampaging monsters off in the distance, this place would've been a feast for the eyes.

"Thomas," Finn said. "Wait here for the others before coming nearer. None of you are to engage in close combat, instead focus on letting the mages get their spells in. The plants react to magic, so you'll have to dance around for a bit before the pay-off."

"We understand," Narvi answered for us. She met my eyes and gave me a nod, and I took off the shield on my back and equipped my short sword. I knew full well how these things were equivalent in strength to a level four, and even then their bodies made it even more difficult to defeat them with how hard they were. With luck though, the caterpillars wouldn't be here, but just the sight of them easily confirmed this incident was related to the earlier ones.

And that Fels too had some hand in this.

Riveria and Bete nodded as prepared themselves.

"We'll be going on ahead then," Finn said with a smile and a salute. "You mind keeping shop?"

"I just hope I don't end up shitting my pants."

Narvi stepped away from me.

"Then it's a good thing you've got brown ones on," Finn said.

Then as one, the three leapt towards the distance, easily clearing the short expanse of forest between us and the shanty town in shambles.

Okay, that was pretty darn cool. I turned to Narvi. "Should we hide?"

"We should be far away enough," she said. "Right now I'm more worried about what might come down that hole." She pointed at the eighteenth floor's entrance. "I also don't know if the others are fine, or if these things are also present in the lower floors."

Ah, right. I really should've thought of that.

Loki, the plant monsters are here. Fels has some connection to whatever's causing this, maybe in cahoots, maybe not. Either way, we have three related incidents so far.

 _That's not really what I wanted to hear. But not like we weren't expecting it, right?_

A plant fell from a distance, followed by a few more dropping like writhing slithering logs. Those things towered over the already large trees in the forest, and where I stood I could barely make out the flashes of light from Bete and Finn's weapons, but the real crux was the magic circle darting around the place—and then came the pillars of fire.

I think its time to tell Freya about this?

 _Way ahead of ya. I'm heading to her place as we speak. To take Rivira like that out of the blue and with such huge numbers, this can't escape the notice of the other gods anymore. And this is also getting way larger than it has any right to be._

The pillars of fire came roaring further, cutting a deep swath of destruction against the ranks of the plant monsters. More of the plants came toppling down from the other side, together with a few trees taking to the air as collateral. Bete and Finn were nigh literally tearing up the place, and it made my knees weak just thinking I was _teasing_ that idiot of a wolf.

I really needed to rethink some of my life choices.

 _Ya think?_

Not that I'd had a chance to, no.

 _Fair enough._

"Thomas," Narvi said. She had her sword and shield out. "Please stay behind me."

I turned back to look and saw this huge bear thing with a head too big for its body. Yeah, I wasn't even gonna try and throw myself at it. I didn't see anything of that kind from the earlier floors so it didn't take much thinking to figure out it came from here or a deeper floor.

"I'll stay out of your way."

"Thank you," she said with a smile—before bisecting the creature from the face down.

Lo and behold, Thomas, this was the girl who saw you half-naked that one time in Loki's room: rumormonger, probably a really bad liar, and can cut monsters in two while looking cute doing it.

Man, this place was bullshit.


	8. Vol 1 Chapter 7

**Volume 1**

 **Chapter 7**

The gravity of levels and such didn't really sink home until I found myself running for my life and away from those plant eating monsters: codenamed, Viola.

It wasn't a bad name per se, it just didn't give it that oomph something that could chow down a level three without problems the presence it deserved. That didn't mean I was underestimating it though, just that hearing about it getting shouted at you just didn't carry that same urgency as something named, oh, I don't know, Venus Carnivore or Purple Maneater.

I for one, was very much in favor of the latter.

The ground thundered with the legless terror's approach. I didn't even fucking know how it moved. Behind, the earlier piece of shit in question was currently spending a casual effort catching up to my sorry ass after Narvi tried—and failed—to kill the thing. Her sword, quite frankly, was useless against the bark or hide of that thing, and we found it prudent not to stick around to check whether we could kill it from the inside or not.

 _Your narration gets weirder whenever you're about to shit your pants, you know that?_

Thanks for pointing it out Loki, now if you'd excuse me, I would rather enjoy my time screaming right now.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!"

"Shut up Thomas!" Narvi said from behind. "If you have time to scream then you have time to run!"

"My agility is shit!"

"Believe you gosh darn idiot! Believe!"

So yeah, magic. Lefiya was able to take these things out with Riveria's ice spell, but Narvi and I didn't have that option. Now if only my stupid shit of a status gave me some sort of bombardment type spell then maybe I might've been able to do something. But alas, my spells all forced me to come close. Not really something I wanted to be doing right now.

"You're the level four here, shouldn't you have magic?!"

"What the hell do I look like to you, huh?" Pissed would've been an understatement, heck, the lady didn't even seem fazed with exhaustion. "You see my ears? I'm human dammit!" Narvi hopped over the vine the Viola lashed out and swiped at it with her sword, only to have the blade bounce off.

I jumped over the bushes in my way and ducked a too low branch. " _I_ have magic!"

She cocked her head to the side. "Well be my guest and cast it then!"

"But that'd mean I'll have to get close enough to hit it. And it's shit against things stronger than me, much less against targets I couldn't even tickle with a full effort!"

"God, you talk too much!" She batted away a bugbear—that same thing we encountered earlier with the too large head–into the gaping maw chasing us.

It swallowed it whole. On the plus side, no gag reflex! Though that might mean the darn thing had powerful stomach—did it even have a stomach? Whatever, it might have some chamber filled with acids or something. Okay, now that I had a better look—

"Duck!" Narvi said.

My head snapped forward, and I ducked to avoid the falling tree knocked down by a bugbear, almost stumbling when my foot caught on a root but a swift kick from my escort got me back on track. She could've been gentler really.

 _You really do talk too much, Tom. Even in your head. Seriously, how're you ever gonna get laid like this?_

"My virginity isn't a question here right now!"

"What the hell are you even talking about?!"

"Not the time, Narvi!" I hopped over a boulder in the way.

Narvi bashed a—deer? She knocked it good upside, breaking off its horns in the process. "Really?! _You're_ telling me that?!"

"Any skills?!"

"A restraining one, but I can't use it consecutively!"

A gigantic shadow covered the ground we were moving on when a jolt sent me sprawling for a tree.

But, a quick grapple of low lying branch and a quick shift of the hips let me maintain my momentum, seamless and smooth in one fluid motion before landing on my feet without braking stride. Enhanced dexterity was the shit!

I looked back and saw Narvi kick away the Viola's teeth filled grill. About their teeth, what's nice was the flower had this gap between… the teeth on its petals and the inner mouth. It also didn't have a tongue, which was a plus in the off chance Narvi or I got snagged. As long as we could avoid the extreme ends, we had some leeway.

I brought out my pick and hammered this large dragonfly in the eye. It barely flinched, but it was enough to make the damned thing fly into the hungry bastard wanting to eat us. "Where the hell are the level fives when you need them?!" Tione and Tiona already killed these things before, now we just needed them to do it again—if they were here!

Narvi bashed the Viola with her shield, but the thing grabbed on and she had to give up her piece lest she lost her arm. Narvi shot me a dirty look—the kind not meant for the bedroom. "Is this really the time?!"

Then it hit me. I was in the dungeon! Which meant I hadn't broken my streak yet! A tree came down in front and I had to double back just to avoid it. But right behind was the Viola and Narvi.

She leapt forward and caught me by the collar and threw me to the side before landing in a roll right next to me.

"Keep going!" she said, hauling me up and pushing me forward.

"We can't keep this up forever!" I wasn't too winded just yet, and my new skill would help keep that up, but I wasn't getting any faster—though I hopefully wasn't getting any slower either. But if we couldn't land a decisive blow, then we were as good as dead. Narvi's arming sword wasn't enough to do the deed, be it from her strength or sheer quality, but maybe there was a way yet.

Off in the distance, the chaos of Finn, Riveria, and Bete literally tearing up the town threw killer plant body parts flying everywhere, and the survivors from the ruined Riviera had taken to fighting back with a formless mass of bodies, some of them not even armed. They paid no heed to forming ranks, only banding together in their struggling against the stragglers.

"I have an idea!" I said. I unhooked my shield and threw it to Narvi.

She caught it. "I'm listening!"

"I need to run close enough to it so my magic could hit"

"How close?" She bashed a dragonfly in the face, and spun into a slash to disembowel the next bugbear.

"Five meters!"

"No shit?!"

"I know!"

We both dove to either side as a tree exploded into splinters on landing.

I started falling back, taking great care not to slow down too fast.

"I don't like this at all!" she said.

"Hah! You and me both!" Inch by inch I let up on furious pace I was treading, and inch by inch the hairs on my arms and neck rose higher and higher. Here I was, voluntarily risking life and limb just for a chance at biting back, and fuck this was too fucking crazy. Shit, I mean, sure I wanted to finish off something big, but that was under the assumption it wasn't gonna be like this!

Wind brushed against my nape. I dove to the side.

Gigantic jaws enclosed on where I was.

I got back up and bit back the string of curses I wanted to let loose in favor of satisfying my preservation instinct.

"That was a stupid plan!" Narvi said just in front of me.

"Fuck me!" I fell back again and grit my teeth. " _Madness_!" I burst into a plume of shadows, my entire body plunged in black.

"What the hell is that?!"

" _My magic!_ " This was simply insurance in the hopes I could burn away some of this bastard's strength if it came down to a clutch. I slowly let it gain on me again, hoping against hope the shroud of shadows could help me feel the thing's attacks that much earlier.

" _Taken from the peace of home._ "

"You can do concurrent chanting?!"

I wanted to say something but that wasn't how magic worked—I shot her a dirty look, but she didn't even budge. I forgot I couldn't show any facial features when this shroud was on. " _I now stand beyond the veil._ "

The wind kicked up behind.

I waited at the last moment—and side stepped.

A boulder of a thing cast me aside and my world erupted into a world of pain—but the black of Despair had caught onto the beast.

And just before the end, I pushed in as much mana as I could muster into the spell. "The aberrant demands reparation!"

Black light extended outward, Narvi just outside its range—but the Viola's head was the only thing I hit and—a great wave of relief seeped into me. Holy shit that worked! The pain from my side barely registered anymore.

"Woah!" Narvi said. "But it didn't kill it!"

" _I expected as much, I was planning on keeping this up until Daffyd and the others came._ "

"Assuming you had the time." Narvi jumped ahead, sword forward and stabbed into another bugbear's head before kicking it back into the Violas, that gobbled it up without missing a beat.

" _Better this than nothing._ " I fell back and restarted my chanting.

"With hope, there won't be another Viola until—"

A Violas burst out of the ground and threw Narvi into the air, my buckler caught in the plant beast's maw. She blocked it just in time to avoid it taking off most of her upper body, and she was now keeping its mouth open with her arms and legs.

" _You just had to jinx it, didn't you?!_ "

"Shut it!" Narvi pushed away from the beast and jumped against its jaws after it clamped down, barely avoiding the other Viola when it bit down on where she was. The two beasts entangling one another, she then ran along its length before she was surrounded by a swirl of blue light. Whatever it was then shifted to her sword, wrapping it in layers of string-like light.

She struck her blade where the two beasts met—and the light from her expanded and wrapped themselves around the two. Narvi then jumped away from the two Violas still thrashing at each other.

"You should've used that earlier!"

"I can't use it again and again dammit! And we were doing just fine earlier!"

"Fine my ass! No, we weren't!"

I went along with her and escaped.

#

After another couple of minutes running to whatever open space there was left, Narvi and I eventually stopped at some cliff overlooking the entrance after clearing it of monsters. Just the regular garden variety ones, not the killer plant ones.

We caught our breath in great heaves, and there were no better words to describe the majesty at how Riveria's magic cut swathes through the Violas' ranks, her fire burning through their lines and overshadowing the light of the crystals above. Nine Hell, she was called, famed for the nine magics she could cast where three was the norm. And ny hitting three spells also meant I'd already hit the cap—barring any bullshit.

Where the fires raged, there also followed these roaring pillars of flame shooting out like spears. It could only have been Bete and his greaves. Tsubaki got into explaining to me the sorts of miracles mithril could do given enough effort. Flosvirt, Bete's custom weapons, were one of her better works, able to take magic in and redirect it. It was effective enough, given how strong Bete's legs were, and I guess magic at least had _some_ mass for his kicks to add to the magic's striking power.

And then there was Finn.

I'd seen Gareth manhandle an orc before, and it was impressive, but this, this was just too much.

One reasonable half of the eighteenth floor was engulfed in flames, while the other had a Viola violently swinging back and forth _exactly_ like a whip. The head would snap left and right, its petals and teeth hitting its fellow monsters with quick lashes and sending its brethren reeling. Their bodies were sturdy as hell, Narvi and I could attest to that with our bodies, but Finn just took the cake with it.

All that happened before our eyes as the survivors of Rivira fought on, but try as they might, their ranks thinned with each Viola that emerged. And for each one they killed, countless others would pay the cost

A breeze blew in with a solemn whisper, the only thing signifying the real passage of time.

It passed like sand against the beach, coming in tidbits of things happening here and there. Finn's makeshift weapons would give way. He would pick up another. The fire storms raged with a practiced rhythm, rising and falling like the breath of some giant, and Bete's plumes spread out from wherever the magic circle would appear.

It went on, fire and smoke threatening to fill the floor as more monsters died.

Eventually, the chaos softened to a murmur, with the scattered skirmishes now favoring the few people still standing. Riveria tapered off wither her spells—because it was the better conclusion compared to her falling in battle here. And Bete's borrowed flames died out as the few Violas remaining were eventually rounded up.

Well below our spot, by the land masses that led to the entrance of the now gone town, bodies littered the ground together with ripped off limbs and swathes of blood and guts. We only got away because there was only one Viola chasing us for the most part before another crashed in, but the town and its people had to deal with the brunt of the invasion before we got here.

Rivira's people fought back even if they were outmatched—whether they knew it or not—and brought down a fair number of the deeper than deep floor monsters. It was commendable, but at too high a cost.

"Narvi," I called out to her. "We should go and check things out."

She nodded, only clutching tighter onto my shield and her sword. "Let's go."

"But before that, let's at least check first. Better we find out early if those Violas are still there."

"Right," she said, readying her gear.

I called on the magic within, letting it well up and fill my limbs before saying, " _Madness_."

I burst into a shroud of black mist.

We waited for a good long minute.

Nothing happened.

Our eyes met. I nodded to her. She nodded back. "Come on," she said.

We made our way down with caution, fast enough to make good time but not too fast that we might've found a nasty surprise. Narvi took point while I kept up Despair like a grim beacon for the Violas to find us. Better the enemy we were expecting than the one we weren't.

Headless torsos, missing arms and legs, and dismembered limbs littered the ground with an appropriate smattering of blood here and there. The smell of iron was thick in the air, and the shit mixing in made it all the worse. The two of us made sure not to step on anything.

Burnt grass crunched beneath us as the sting of carbon burned my nose. It was better than the shit, but we didn't have much choice. Something twinkled from the corner of my vision and I crouched down on the damp ground to pick it up—a dirt covered orange-hued magic stone. I expected as much, but a quick look had the ground reflecting the light above, showing the way to a few more stones.

"Narvi," I said, showing her the stone. "Might as well make it worth our time, right?"

 _That's nasty._

I know, but we might find a use for these yet.

Narvi nodded without question, her eyes locked straight at the prize. We set about our task with reverence for the fallen we were treading on, and it was a sobering dread to be alive and standing here now. I talked a big game about becoming a stain somewhere, but I'd always said so in jest. Seeing this though, it just hit you someway else. And really, the smell of shit and blood wasn't something to get used to at all.

"Hrrk."

I turned back with my pick out—and saw Narvi emptying her stomach at the ground, her cleaner hand covering her nose where she could.

"I can't do this," she said, shaking her head. Then took off for some burnt trees away from the carnage. Narvi hurled some more, hands clutched against her stomach.

"I got this," I called out to her with a wave.

There was so much littering the ground, both crystals and guts, a testament to the numbers that fell. I didn't really know how many familias were active up in Orario, but there were enough in Rivira to make up a sizeable town and a just as grand mess like what I was standing on. I crouched down to fulfill my self-imposed labor and picked up stones wherever the light shone.

I dug into the dirt with my fingers—and got a piece of bone, maybe from a finger. It was still a bit wet and caked in dirt. I threw it away.

 _You don't have to do this if you don't want to, Tom._

I know, but every bit helps.

 _A handful of stones is enough._

If I stopped seeing the stones then I'd have to look at the people.

It was a large field we were on and I was combing the place for stones the size of a clenched fist. It wasn't too hard once I got into the rhythm, and my pick was pretty good for reaching out with. The smell, was better left ignored, but after a thorough search, I had to take off my tunic underneath just so I could have a makeshift sack to carry all the stones in. Pointless it may be, but I knew for a fact these things packed in either more magic per volume or some higher quality of mana or whatever. Why else would they be a different color? End game shit couldn't be crafted without the proper end game materials after all.

"Thomas!" a gruff voice called out.

I looked up from the ground and saw Daffyd and the others, Brynmor, Cadoc, Claire, Arcs. I pointed at where Narvi was sitting on a burnt tree stump and saw Cynthia, Lloyd, and Riine.

Daffyd ran towards me, his short dwarven legs gracefully treading over the slick dirt and carbonized foliage. "What are you doing there?"

"Gathering materials."

He shook his head, his short ginger beard reminiscent of the stones in my sack. "Come on, we should go meet with Finn and the others."

Cadoc raised his hand and from it shot out a bright red light high into the air.

Daffyd picked me up from my armpits before taking the sack into his own hands. "I'll take care of these," he said. "And, you, err, try and stay upwind?"

I shrugged. "Those stones are important pieces of evidence." Heck, I'd eat them if it could add to my status, but that was just wishful thinking.

 _At least wash them first before you try._

Of course, I'm not _that_ stupid.

"Just," Daffyd said, "let's just go."

He pulled me by the shoulders, but I couldn't help another look back. And it was a satisfying sight to see the field I was on devoid of any shining pieces. How many I collected, I wasn't too sure. But it was enough.

A distance away, another red light shot into the air.

"They're over there!" Cadoc said.

Our group crossed the newly formed gorge of glassed earth. On the other side, the survivors of Rivira had already restarted on recovering their losses. Some of them were trawling the heaps of rubble for whatever was useful, and even more were helping the others dress their wounds. People were dashing left and right with basins of water hastily cut up from the unburnt trees nearby. And already, lumber was being processed for building just next to that.

It was an efficiency born from experience, and surprisingly enough the people didn't look too bothered. Sad perhaps for the dead, but they didn't have those glazed over stares.

I guess it came with spending a lot of time here in the eighteenth floor, to the extent that some of them might have even been living here if some of the pale complexions were anything to go by. The light from the crystals above didn't give off heat, which probably meant we were only getting that visible portion of light and could just as easily have indicated a lack of higher wavelengths. Heck, who was I to say what was what in the Dungeon.

It didn't take long to find Finn and the other two.

They were seated together around a fire with a simple meal cooking between the three. Finn and Bete were eating from a stew with a few bits of meat while Riveria had a small platter of fruits of strange colors and shapes. Their gear had seen better days too, that was for sure. Riveria's staff was in pristine condition, but her robes were dirty and stained, and it was a disturbing sight to her so haggard. Her light green hair clung to her skin, and her immaculate expression was marred by a smudge or two.

Bete, was for all intents and purposes mangy and singed, and his armor pieces were cracked in places—no doubt needing a full course of loving from Tsubaki, not to mention a great deal of cash too.

And Finn, he didn't have his spear anymore. His leathers were scratched and what places those left uncovered were bruised and scratched. He wasn't bleeding though, but the heavy careful breaths weren't too easy to swallow. Not from him like this.

"Hey," I said. "We're alive." I gestured at our group.

Finn looked at me while Bete scrunched his nose and Riveria frowned. "You look like shit," Finn said.

"I might've stepped on a turd or two."

Daffyd shook his head, and the girls made a solid effort not to look my way. It also didn't help that all of them were giving me a wide berth even as we walked through what remained of the town.

The parrum pursed his lips. "Let's leave it at that."

I sat down near him as the others with me went to tend to Riveria and Bete. Claire, Cynthia, and Riine, didn't have much with them, but they borrowed a bit of water nearby for the lady to refresh herself with. And Bete probably needed a bath and some brushing, but his fur—I mean hair would be good as new after a bit of elbow grease and a really stiff scrubbing.

"How're you holding up?"

Finn flexed his arm. "Tired, but at least I got to see how much I could do." He bit his lip. "I just wish I could've done more." He looked me up from the toes to my head. "You have blood on you."

"It's not his," Narvi said. She held her mouth in a panic, then shuddered. "Ugh, that was so bad."

"What in the name of hell were you doing?" Finn said.

"That's not important right now."

"I'd say it was," Daffyd said. "He was crawling all over the battlefield collecting magic stones."

Finn raised a brow.

"Where the dead were," Narvi added.

"Oh," Finn said. He narrowed his eyes at me. "Tom?"

"We can't deny these stones are significant."

"And what did Loki say?"

 _You kinda have a point, but still._

"She said it was a little much."

"Gee ya think?" Bete said.

I waved a hand dismissively. "Bah, whatever. The quest?"

Finn shook his head, and took out the yellow flag. "I made sure to wave this around as asked, but no one came."

"Maybe we should make one more round of the town before leaving?"

He sighed. "We already did."

"Oh."

"In hindsight, we went into this too fast too soon."

"We were told it was urgent," I said. "And we were also contacted by some unknown person who knew me of all people. That was pretty serious, I'd say. Especially if they knew more."

"You're not wrong," he said. Finn looked around, his gaze stopping at the scattered peoples and rubble. "And we got to do something here at least."

"Small victories, Finn. We take what we can get."

He chuckled. "It's been too long since I've felt like this."

"I figure magic has a tendency to make you feel not as mortal."

Finn smiled. "Not much point staying here then," he said, standing up.

I stood up after him. "Err, shouldn't we like at least tell someone we're leaving or something?"

"Why bother?" he said. "Bors is already gone anyway."

"Who now?"

Finn shook his head.

#

The trek back up was a silent affair with little more than small talk to keep the gloom away.

Rivira was a complete disaster, and the numbers dead from the tragedy were sure to be felt above ground soon enough. How that would translate though, was anyone's guess. One thing was for sure, whatever transpired here was a lot bigger than we thought. The attack was premeditated was what Finn and I could gather from the survivor's stories, the Violas just appeared out of nowhere and suddenly everything went out of whack.

But things only got worse after Bors ordered Rivira's gates closed in order to find the culprit who killed this Hasharna guy. Things were fine after the closing, but another hour or so later and the Violas got to doing what they did best.

Some part at the back of my mind couldn't help but feel this massacre was a failure on our part, but we could only do so much. If any, I felt we were just for insurance. That Fels character was already aware of what was happening, else he wouldn't have worded his message the way he did. But he wasn't the one to instigate the attack, or at least, I don't think he was.

Simply because there were very few people and familias in Orario with the means and motive to pull off such a thing.

When we got back, it was only about four in the afternoon.

Loki welcomed us together with Gareth, the only other person left in the famila since everyone else had yet to return.

"You all did well down there," she said.

"It wasn't pretty," Finn said.

"I know," Loki followed-up. She walked over to Finn and gave him a tight hug. "You did your best."

The parrum let out a long breath. "Having Thomas around is really convenient." He looked back and gave me a smile.

"Just doing my job, Finn."

Loki sneered. "His narrations are shit."

"I can't imagine having to hear Thomas's thoughts like that at all times," Narvi said with a grim tone.

"Just imagine hearing his _and_ Loki's," Riveria added all haughty.

Everyone there and Loki nodded.

"Hey! That included you!"

"At least I admit to being unreliable."

"Nonsense! I'm a reliable narrator!"

That got a few laughs from the others.

"Come along then," Gareth said with a wave. "The baths are waiting, and the food is hot."

No one said no to that.

Loki hosed me down herself before she let me set food in the house, and it wasn't comforting how much gunk she had to blast away before the water even started to clear. She didn't say anything, and neither did I. When she let me go, I went straight up to my room for a hot shower.

The manor was equipped with a common bath and individual and shared rooms also had them. Loki was very adamant about having them so people could refresh themselves before they went into the living areas. And everyone appreciated her for it—despite the obvious drawbacks. Soap was also provided for, just like most of the necessities to daily life like the food and cooking and magic stone refills.

But I didn't like the idea of shared nudity, so I still favored my own place.

I had my armor hanging just outside my room to dry and the clothes I wore under already in the trash. It wasn't worth the effort of washing those out, might as well just get new ones at that modern goods store I went to before. I sat on my bed and looked into the mirror. Were my eyes always that tired? I inched closer and felt my thinned cheeks, the skin dry and flaky.

A frown reflected from the mirror.

I took a deep breath. How long ago have I been here again? Less than a week if I remembered right. My palms were cracked, the skin broken in places, the nails chipped, and my feet were callused. I brought my legs up on the bed, my knees and elbows were just as rough. My chest and arms and thighs were all pale, or at least paler than I remembered them, the veins showing just underneath.

But it was all for the only cause that mattered.

I slapped some sense back into myself. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. Perhaps back home that was an absolute, but here, the body could be exploited better with the falna. I still had a long way to go, but the little extras I put on would eventually pile up.

I clenched my fist hard. Hard enough to further open the cracks in my palm, enough to make my tendons and muscles tense. It was a solid fist as sturdy as a rock and I felt like I could crush stone with it.

The face in the mirror was fierce. Gaunt, but driven with resolve.

I joined the others downstairs and helped welcome everyone back with bowls of soup. The familia's dedicated cooks didn't pull any stops with serving up a storm, and the people who'd gone down to collect money and supplies trickled in piece-wise as the story of Rivira's tragedy was passed around between tables.

Rakta, Zena, and Lara and their groups were the first ones to get back and without any losses besides a few potions. Their gathering runs had their bags filled to bursting with all sorts of loot: hides, landform weapons, crystals and such from the twenties. Everyone was formed into large groups capable of diving deep enough to count, but we still took composition into account for which floors they could manage safely.

Finn kept a close watch on the people who came in, his eyes darting between each one who took a seat. Riveria part of the table attracted the female elves, and Gareth was living it up with Brynmor and his brothers.

Bete was skulking around the outskirts of the dining hall but he was here nonetheless.

Aiz, Nicole and Alma's groups came back with smaller hauls, but they had the higher levelled people. Aiz's group was self-explanatory, but the latter two had the highest number of level threes and fours than the earlier groups and so they were able to dive by the thirties. They also reported that Udaeus had already respawned so we could take that into account in the near future.

Their hauls were littered with large crystalline bones and dragon fangs.

The results overall were pretty good even if I didn't have a way of estimating the total income. Gareth then directed everyone's spoils to the vaults for safekeeping.

This way of doing things made the most sense if we were purely in it as a money making racket, but the Guild had a tight hold on Orario's economy. Even if we sold our goods to familias directly, the flow of money would still reflect on the reports the mercantile familias were required to submit to the tax office, putting two and two together after that was all a matter of cross-referencing with who went down last, and eventually this little slip would show up at our doorstep asking if we came into any recent fortunes.

It was a very efficient system that aimed to maintain the balance of Orario's fragile and very liquid economy.

There also existed the requirements for exploration familias to keep on pushing further and further down the Dungeon. Hence, why everyone seems to need to keep going down despite the perfectly reasonable method of amassing enough riches to retire before they were thirty.

Night fell, and the hall finally saw the return of everyone safe and sound, but dinner time wasn't the same lively affair.

Finn stood atop the main table overlooking everyone. "Settle down," he said.

The small talk flitting back and forth slowed to a stop.

"We've all heard of what happened to Rivira by now," he said. "And we know now that whoever is behind this is ready to do whatever it takes."

Nods all around. Aiz clenched her fist next to me. Lili and I were in the same table as Finn and the others. Me, because of my fortuitous relationship with Loki—probably. And Lili, because she was designated as Finn's heir, and her training was to start tomorrow. Loki had also already updated her status to bear the mark of the clown.

"Loki has called for a meeting with the gods tomorrow as an emergency measure for whatever is happening. This is intended to share information between the gods so that we may either find the culprit, or form some action in response.

"Because of this, we will hold take extra safety measures for any activities in the Dungeon for the next few days until we get settled on an agreement. Anyone who wishes to go down must be accompanied by at least three level fours. I'll trust everyone to settle your own groups."

No one said anything after that, and the night ended with a somber tone.

#

 **Level 1**

Strength = F 312 - F 334

Endurance = F 347 - F 392

Dexterity = E 482 - D 501

Agility = G 237 - F 302

Magic = D 589 - C 624

Madness Spectrum = I

Tranquil Intervention = I

World Walker = I

Fated Actor = I

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Madness"

Saudade = An area of effect drain spell that takes the magic and life force contained in all within range and transfers it to the user. Targets stronger than the user are able to resist having their magic and life stolen. Has a five-meter radius, and a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Taken from the peace of home / I now stand beyond the veil / The aberrant demands reparation"

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

Enabler = Increases magic by an exceptional amount in a pinch and causes magic damage to siphon life force.

Mania = Increases endurance the longer one stays in battle and gradually wears off after.

#

The morning was quiet, but it was the kind of quiet just before the fan caught on fire after shit got into the motors.

One second I was eating breakfast, and the next I knew I was already standing next to Finn as Loki's other escort to the emergency meeting. I wanted to argue Riveria was the better choice, but Loki and Finn preferred my pessimism with dealing with the other gods.

"I'm so fucked."

"Relax Tom," Finn said, "all you need to do is frown and look unfriendly."

"Good cop bad cop only works from a position of power. We are _so_ not in a position of power right now."

"Dude, we have the _other_ level seven," Loki said with a smug smile. "Live a little."

The meeting place was in Freya's mansion because it was the single most secure place in Orario. Loki begrudgingly trusted her whimsical sister to stay true to her desires, which was to collect strong people. She couldn't do that if everyone was dead, hence, it wasn't Freya.

Freya's mansion, Folvangr, which was also more tastefully named compared to the semi-edgy Twilight Manor, was this oasis of greenery and marble that marked the end of South Main street and was smack dab in the middle of the business district. There were fruit bearing trees I recognized like apples and oranges at the courtyard, and well trimmed hedges shaped like warriors in battle by the gardens. The mansion was also surrounded by thick masonry and wrought iron fittings of complex floral designs, not really for defending against adventurers but simply to show off.

Every inch of this place just screamed bling.

We were standing just to the right of Freya who was guarded by Ottar and some runarl guy with a mask, and to our immediate left was Hephaestus with Tsubaki and some other dwarf I hadn't met yet.

The polished floor reflected my frown.

As far as we knew, us three familias were the only ones innocent. Freya because Loki'd already heard her piece, and Hephaestus because she was trusted by both us and Freya. We brought her into the loop after bringing up the matter with the former. From these two, a few gods with smaller familias were also vouched for: Hestia, Miach, Takemikazuchi, Goibniu, Dian Cecht, to name a few. Soma we didn't even bother with, those guys couldn't even fight their way down to the eighteenth floor.

Our minimum for suspicion was any familia with level fours and up, and anyone else below that was highly unlikely. Familias who'd fallen from grace were also within our strike zone because of the history with the Eviluz. However, it would've been in bad taste to invite just the ones we suspected, and it'd help our cause to get on everyone's good graces by sharing what information we could. At the very least, if they didn't want to ally, then they could stay out of the way.

The list for suspects was still rather large: Ishtar, Ganesha—whom the three gods immediately rejected but I argued still to keep him on to be sure—Demeter, to name the more familiar ones, then Sekhmet, Tialoc, Kovas, and Pele. There were others too, but their forces had at most a couple or three level fours and no more after that.

Riveria, Gareth, Aiz, Tiona, Tione, and Bete were all waiting with the rest of Freya's executives: five level sixes, and eleven level fives, to spring the trap I hoped we didn't have to use today. Just the numbers of those first-class adventurers already had me shaking in my boots, and what more was how Freya familia's average level was three compared to our two.

Long story short, never fuck with Freya.

"I assure you," Ottar said, "no harm shall befall anyone in lady Freya's presence."

"Thomas," Freya said, "please be sure to keep your eyes open. I'll be counting on you." She smiled a little my way.

"I'll do my best." I sighed.

"You know lady Freya?" Tsubaki said with a smile.

"Over dinner, yeah."

"You have a lot of friends in high places, Tom," Hephaestus said.

"Yeah, you and Tsubaki included."

The latter shot me a wink.

"They're here," Finn said, and at once the hall went silent.

The doors opened, and in came an eclectic parade of people and gods dressed in clothes that had no unifying era or cut or design. There were those decked out in heavy jewelry or those in thin veils where I saw more than I normally ought to. All the gods had perfect bodies even if their ages seemed here and there. Their adventurer guards sometimes wore the same out of place styles, and even more wore something more comfortable for moving in. Wary eyes darted left and right, and more than a few expressed surprise at meeting mine.

Finn had already spent a long time with Loki, and these guards I assumed were more likely to be a god's highest levelled child, mostly the captains of the familias and their vice captains. Because really, who in their right mind would bring a level one to one of these things?

Yes, Loki was banking on the culprit not making a scene, and it made sense too, but it was my ass on the line here during an event I had no real power to change.

Gods filled in the seats we laid out in a circle while their guards stood on either side of them. Just from this, the different allegiances could already be seen to some extent, though the riff-raff male gods who kept giving Freya undisguised looks sat to her immediate left.

"Hoho, Lady Freya's looking fine as always!"

"Are they gonna be serving any food?"

"I am Ganesha!"

"Who's that nerd behind Loki?"

"Them headlights on the pirate, grandeur!"

Loki, what the fuck.

 _Just bear with it for now._

"I heard the Braver just reached level seven, we should take this chance to think of a new name for him!"

"Ottar's still the king, so maybe… the prince? He's tiny after all."

"Where's the bathroom?"

Loki ran me through with their names once I described where they sat: Kutkh, Set, Khaldi, Inara, Mayari, Dewi Ratih, Lugh, Verethragna, the names went on. Thankfully though, none of their guards gave off the same pressure Ottar did.

"Look at that fine piece of ass behind Loki!"

"He has this delicious look to him like everyone here's less than dirt!"

"Damn that's hot!"

"I wonder if he likes it nasty?"

Loki? Really, what the fuck?

 _You lose if you mind them._

"So, the three biggest familias have something brewing, eh?"

"I don't know about Hephaistos and Freya, but anything with Loki involved is bound to be a laugh!"

"What the hell? Hestia's here?"

The well-endowed loli walked in sweating buckets and fidgeting, and next to her was some white-haired kid. She only had one person with her. Together with them were Miach, who also only had one person, and Takemikazuchi who had a tall guy and a girl in a ponytail.

 _Heads up Tom, burn that kid's image into your head._

Which one?

 _Hestia's kid, he's the one Freya's after._

Elaborate?

 _You don't wanna know._

Noted.

Hestia took a seat next to Hephaestus, then after her was Miach, Takemikazuchi, Hermes, Dionysius, Goibniu, the ones we'd ruled out. Loki also pointed out our prime suspects: Ganesha with the elephant mask, Demeter in the toga whose chest might spill out at any moment, Ishtar who kept giving Freya the stink eye, Kovas in the pointed metal helmet, Sekhmet the blonde with the cat eye mascara, Tialoc in the colorful dress of geometric designs, and Pele in the flower crown.

Once everyone got to their seats, Freya stood. "Welcome everyone," she said with a smile. "We would like to share what we know with you regarding the events that transpired during the Monster Feria, and now has taken Rivira from us, though we all know that place would survive."

A few nervous chuckles made its rounds.

"But the matter stands that a tragedy has occurred. And who are to take this sitting down?"

"That's right!"

"I am _Ganesha_!"

"We're gods dammit! Nobody takes from us unless we're cool with it!"

"Who do we burn?"

"Yeah! Time for the pitchforks!"

That got a laugh from the lot of them.

 _Idiots, the lot of them._

Geez, I get you gods don't really die, but damn.

 _Some of them are just in it for the shits and giggles._

I didn't want to believe, but shit.

Freya clapped her hands once or twice. "Now now," she said, and the slight catch to her voice was enough to silence the little shits. "I'd be terribly sad if any of my children were to suffer for what happened and may happen."

"You guys think there's a mastermind?"

"What do you mean? Of course, there'd be a mastermind!"

"Time to get the hero to slay the demon lord!"

"But what if… it was a god that was the demon lord?!"

The circle broke into a commotion with people accusing others left and right and shouting and screaming, another two gods ended up in a fist fight that had their children, or captains whatever, cluelessly try and break up the fight only to end up dragging another three into the scuffle.

Ottar cleared his throat.

The commotion stopped cold.

"Everyone," Freya said without mirth. " _Return_ to your seats."

Yelps sounded out from her fanboys and the gods who got into the fist fight started behaving, the relief clear on all the mortal's faces.

"This is getting us nowhere," Loki said.

"It was a disaster waiting to happen," Hephaestus added.

"Ara, now I feel like having my children let loose a bit," Freya said.

""""We'll behave!""""

"Oh," Freya said, "a shame perhaps."

""""Please continue!""""

I get your point now about the other gods… good thing I met you first.

 _And don't you forget it._

"I'll be passing the floor now to Loki," Freya said. " _Listen_ to her." She smiled. "Alright?"

""""Yes!""""

Gotta hand it to Freya, she really knows how to get a crowd eating out the palms of her hands.

Just the male population though.

 _It's just the men who're that stupid. The women have more sense._

Hmm, yeah, not even gonna argue. I agree completely.

Loki stood up. "Listen up you sorry lot," she said. "Those beasties that showed up in Rivira and the Feria were the same things, Finn here was the one to put an end to that little fiasco, and I'm willing to bet things have yet to get better."

There were outcries and lament at what was revealed, and more than a few were just itching to make a scene. I kept close watch on our suspects, but none were yet to give anything away. Ganesha… was crying.

"And my child Hashana was also killed in that tragedy! I demand payment in blood for that! I, Ganesha, pledge my power to you if you will help me avenge my child."

"Yeah but we still suspect you for the Feria!"

"Bunch of tamers! And he probably has a bondage fetish too!"

"That was a little out of left field."

"Eh, it's Ganesha, what'd you expect?"

"That makes sense to me, screw you Dumbo!"

Ottar cleared his throat, and the crowds went silent.

"You should teach me how to do that sometime," Finn said with a chuckle.

The king shrugged.

"I, Ganesha, sincerely declare to you all, that the events at the Feria were not orchestrated by neither I nor my children, but I still apologize for the incident. That was our responsibility, and that someone was able to sneak in those Violas was an insult to my name as the lord of hosts."

"Ganesha didn't do it," Loki said, "he's too stupid to pull it off."

"I, Ganesha, take offense at that."

"Yeah, but Loki wasn't wrong."

"That's right, Ganesha's got a mortal fetish! He'd never kill in cold blood."

"I, Ganesha, find this train of thought disturbing."

"Shut yet traps!" Loki said. "Bah, my familia also encountered some new types of monsters during our last expedition to the fiftieth floor, I figured you guys might want to have a look at what we found."

Finn produced four orange stones and passed them around to the congregation.

"We found those differently colored stones in the monsters, and I trust you lot won't incite a panic with this. I already got Ouranos's permission to share my findings with you idiots, but don't go spouting out and shit. The culprit might still be one of us, and the culprit might also be none of us. We'd best avoid letting an outsider know we're in the know now. Capisci?"

Scattered yesses came back, some "oh noes" mixed in.

"Something's stirring in the dungeon, and all your children ought to tread carefully these next few days until the matter's taken care of."

Ishtar stood up. "And we're supposed to assume you three are innocent?"

"Why else would we share the information?" Loki said with a shrug.

Ishtar raised a brow. "To get us off you trail? We all already know those Violas are about as strong as a level four, and who best to get the deed done than Loki and Freya?"

"Was that an accusation, Ishtar?" Freya asked with a smile.

Ishtar crossed her arms. "If the shot fits, right?"

"I am to assume that you, Loki, and Freya are in an alliance, yes?" Takemikazuchi said.

Loki and Freya shared a look, Freya raised a brow and Loki hung her head. "Yes," Loki said, "we are."

 _I'd much rather not though!_

Dude, they're our best allies yet.

"Thank you," Takemikazuchi said—that was too long name to say all the time, so I'll just call him Take moving forward. "Then why would Finn stop the tragedy in the eighteenth?"

"Potato buns has a point!"

"I didn't think that kimono fetishist had it in him!"

"When are we gonna eat?"

Ishtar took her seat.

"I guess that answers that question," Loki said with a smug smile.

What's her problem?

 _She wants to be the most beautiful, but Freya has a solid lead, she's also a shitty person—and I'm comparing her to_ Freya _._

Fair point.

"Any more takers?" Loki said.

"I have something to say," Ganesha said. "I… am Ganesha."

"Sit down dammit!"

Ganesha sat down.

Loki ended the meeting there and most of everyone left, most of them laughing like it was nothing at all. There were a few serious looks here and there and some hushed discussions, but ultimately, all I could rule out was that no one reacted unexpectedly, and that I was sure now that Ganesha and Ishtar didn't do it. The former because, he was Ganesha, and the latter because the attack would've been made directly at Freya if she had that much power.

When the last to leave had exited, the doors to the hall were closed.

"As expected," Loki said. "No one cracked."

"Gods are such fickle beings," Freya said.

"I'd say, those guys back there had sticks up their butts, maybe spiked."

Tsubaki and the dwarf laughed, and Hephaestus pursed her lips. Freya chuckled lightly, and Ottar and the mask dude didn't react one bit.

"I'm rather amazed you can speak like that against the gods," Hephaestus said. "Normally a child wouldn't have the will to do so." She raised an eyebrow at Loki. "Something else you might want to tell us, Loki?"

Freya hummed. "Thomas has a mind link with my dear sister," she said with a smile. "It makes him… rather interesting."

Hephaestus rubbed her chin. "Like an oracle?"

Loki shook her hand in front of her. "More or less."

Is it fine to let them know?

 _It's Hephaistos, if she gives us a discount for it then all the better, right?_

Your call then.

"They do that a lot," Freya added. "Talk in their heads."

Hephaestus snickered. "No wonder he didn't care about Hestia."

"Our next course of action then?" Freya asked.

"Nothing," I said.

Finn nodded.

"Oh?" Freya gestured for me to go on.

"We're at an impasse right now where we don't know who the culprit or culprits are, and we also have no means of finding them. We're completely dependent on reacting to whatever move this entity will pull off next. There's the possibility of sending a massive force down the Dungeon to explore the lead we found in the fiftieth floor, but doing so would thin our forces here topside."

"Topside?" Hephaestus narrowed her eye at me. "Impasse?"

Loki smiled at her.

"I see," Freya said.

"Eh? What'd I say?"

"Tom, those words you said only gained traction around the nineteenth century from your world."

"You, sly fox," Freya cooed. "My lucky sister picked up someone interesting."

"He's mine, Freya!"

"Oh, I know, and I'm not too interested in someone with such a… dark color, though I guess a deep black is also a purity in itself."

"Was it just me or was what she said really ominous?"

"You're from another world." Hephaestus said. She wiped her face with her palm.

"Hmm, I'm not following," Tsubaki said with a nod. She looked at her dwarf friend who shrugged back.

"Does Ouranos know about Thomas?" Freya asked.

"I'd had no reason to tell him," Loki said.

"Let's keep it that way for now," Freya said. "I agree the Guild isn't behind these events, but the old man's still hiding quite a few things from us."

"That old coot?" Hephaestus rested her head on her wrist. "Please tell me you two aren't planning a coup."

"We're not planning a coup," Loki said, annoyed.

"I'd rather hear it from Freya," Hephaestus said.

"Heh, I like her."

"Shut it you," Loki said. "On that note, might as well talk business while we're here."

"Wait, shouldn't we tell the others they can relax now though? Aiz and the others and Freya's people might still be all tense and stuff."

"Thomas," Freya said, "be sure to watch how you talk in front of the other gods, please? I'd rather my sister not be plagued by those… flies who want a piece of the pie."

"D-did you just call me a cow pie?"

Freya laughed like a hundred tinkling bells.

"I'm not so sure I still want to be in this alliance," Hephaestus said.

#

After the meeting, we had Tione, Tiona, and Bete escort Hephaestus back to her home, while the rest of us made our way back to the manor.

The real reason we set the meeting was to paint a target on our backs, Freya's and ours. Hephaestus agreed to it, thankfully, but it came with the trade-off that we'd need to provide their place with extra protection. Ever the doting older sister, Freya volunteered her people—since she had enough of them—to take care of the protection detail.

Our job then, was to go down to the fiftieth floor and scout the place out in case we really needed to deploy a sizeable force down the Dungeon.

It didn't sit well with anyone to do so, however, because it sounded exactly like how the greater familias of old died out: namely, the Odin and Zeus familias. It was after they'd failed big time in the Dungeon that started their eventual downfall, and that what was happening now seemed way too suspicious and timely.

Some guy comes in from a different world, weird shit started happening in the Dungeon. We've said it before, and we weren't just being paranoid when we pointed out how the timing was so on point. We also shared with Freya and Hephaestus our dealings with this Fels character, and how big of a reward was offered on a successful run.

We got home to a lively living room with the familia going about their usual daily business. Some were chatting, some were training, and then there was Lefiya who was nose deep into her books. The cooks were already starting their dinner time preparations, and Raul was off by the tree carving up a stray branch while Rakta was teaching Cruz how to crochet.

At least now I knew where Loki's crocheted rabbit came from.

I went up to my room to pick up my gear, so I could go down the Dungeon again, and Gareth was already ready to go since he had his gear with him. I was coming down the stairs when someone grabbed me by the shoulders.

I found myself face to face with Aiz, my back to the wall. Pretty sure she wasn't even eighteen yet, but we were still the same height. I was pretty short for a dude, and she just had to remind me.

"Thomas," she said, "you fought the infant dragon by yourself?"

I looked around, there wasn't anyone nearby. I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to tell her I did that. At least, not if Gareth's tone yesterday was anything to go by. "Umm, no?"

"You're lying." If it was ever possible to be glared at with a neutral expression, she made it happen. It was a strange dissonance that made me want to give her a pat on the head and cower at the same time.

Uhh, Loki, bit of help. Aiz wants me to answer her whether I soloed the infant dragon or not.

 _Oof, alright, I'll send Gareth up._

Please hurry.

"Thomas?" Gareth said from down stairs.

Aiz narrowed her eyes at me before running down the hallway and jumping out the window, but not before shooting me another blank glare.

Gareth came up from the stairs. "Good work holding out, Tom."

"Why's she acting up all of a sudden?"

"She found out you'd been fighting everything up to the twelfth floor, maybe from someone in the familia."

"She cornered me."

"Aye, she sometimes gets like that when she's found something interesting." Gareth slapped me in the back. "Let's just get to killin' monsters for now, I'd rather drown out these worries with something more productive."

"That's not a healthy way of dealing with your problems Gareth."

"Aye, but at least you're a level one."

"Good point."

We went down the Dungeon together with Lili and Finn, and the former was equipped with a short sword and a buckler just like I was at first. She was also wearing some spare armor from Finn, I guessed. We split off by the first floor so Lili could get started on her own, while Gareth and I went straight for the eleventh floor—and perhaps it was luck or whatever, but the infant dragon was there again.

But it was already getting swarmed by a party—and I think those were the guys Takemikazuchi was with? I recognized the red shoulder guard the girl in the ponytail was wearing.

We moved on and went for the twelfth floor with the silverbacks, so I could get used to fighting without relying on sight too much. An indispensable skill, Gareth called it. He then stepped away to give me space.

I took out my pick and short sword. " _Madness_."

The first roar signified the start of the gauntlet, as I leapt towards the source.

Hack, slash, smash, pull, latch, stab. It was a simple collection of movements practiced over the last few days with each swing becoming more familiar than the last. When the silverbacks would punch, the hammer head smashed against their fingers and fists. When they went for a body check I'd latch onto them and stab them full of holes. When they went for a bite, a quick pick to the noggin or stab through the throat would greet them. When they kicked, I'd slash against their knees or tendons and break away, ready for them to come back slower.

Methodical dismantling wasn't as exciting, but it was thrilling nonetheless because of the control I could exert. It wasn't on the level of dancing around my opponent, but to direct the monsters' movements somewhat depending on what wounds I inflicted or how much of their attacks I tanked was still a revelation.

But it wasn't giving me the experience I needed, I think. As the battle went on, the more wounds I inflicted on them also meant Despair's effects would have higher chances of taking hold, and screaming monkeys were not as fun dealing with. Easy to find in the low visibility, yes, but it kind of defeated the purpose. Also, letting battles drag on for too long made my endurance rise so now even if the monkeys were punching I'd just take it without minding and payback their puny scratches with a stab of the sword or pick.

It cheapened the gauntlets I put myself through the longer they went.

I ducked a punch and countered with the hammer.

" _Taken from the peace of home_."

I stabbed a monkey through the gut.

" _I now stand beyond the veil_."

I smashed a head away.

" _The aberrant demands reparation._ "

Black light exploded.

The bodies littering the ground disappeared, and my magic and stamina refreshed. Long protracted battles were my schtick, and doing this now wasn't gonna help me too much in the long run, though it did help me find more creative ways with which to strike or evade.

I slipped by a punch and stabbed the armpit of the monkey it was attached to before picking it in the ribs. I stepped back and took a hit to the chest before countering with a smash upside the hide, the other monkey started foaming in the mouth before a slash at the neck had it screaming through the bubbles.

Perhaps it was time to move to the thirteenth floor?


	9. Vol 1 Chapter 8

**Volume 1**

 **Chapter 8**

I was seated at breakfast together with Lili, Gareth, and Finn and eating heartily. It was satisfying to know the three of them agreed with me about having a balanced meal, and Finn was even willing to consider imposing a stricter focus on getting everyone their proper vitamins and minerals—which really only translated to making sure we didn't have any meat heads like Anakity or Tiona.

Lili broke the bread in her hands and dipped it into the soup. "Ugh, Lili was made to go down to the third floor of the dungeon fighting by herself."

"That's not normal?"

Lili pursed her lips at me, then looked to the monsters sat with us. She groaned. "Lili forgot none of you people are normal."

"I can't say no to that." Gareth stroked his beard.

"Look at the bright side, Lili," Finn said with a smile. "Doesn't it feel good to release the tension?"

"That's a very unhealthy coping mechanism, Finn."

"I don't want to hear that from you," Gareth said with a flat stare.

Loki joined our table dragging Aiz and Tiona behind her. They didn't even have their food yet. "These two need help."

"I charge a premium for my psychiatric services."

Loki sneered. "And I'd be damned if I made you the shrink to these two."

"Finn," Aiz said with that same intense stare. "We need money."

Finn didn't bat an eye. "How bad?"

Tiona, tongue in cheek, said, "We need one hundred and sixty-five million."

Lili coughed up her soup.

I rubbed her back to help get it out. "There there, Lili, these people have no proper sense for financing at all."

Loki gave me a dirty look. "Says the guy who hates taxes."

Finn shrugged. "Sure, we can do that. I've been wanting to show Lili around as well, this would also be a good opportunity for Thomas."

"Oh, so I finally get to last hit some deep floor monsters?"

"That's not how it works, Thomas." Gareth shook his head. "That's not how it works at all."

Loki sighed. "Just go with them, alright? I want to see how far your range goes, it'd be pretty useless if we couldn't use it where and when it matters most."

"I get your point. Ah, and I can also grind my magic stat down there too." I gave her a thumb up.

"Good enough," Loki said.

We finished our food and got ready for a dive, with me finally equipping the great sword I was yet to use. The plan was to send a small elite force with as little baggage possible—baggage here referring to me and Lili. And to have our supporters be the kind to be able to fight when we needed them to.

As such, our party was assembled with: me, Lili, Finn, Riveria, Aiz, Tiona, Tione, Lefiya, Rakta, Narvi, and Daffyd and his brothers. In terms of composition, that was one level seven, one level six, three level fives, four level fours, two level threes, and two level ones. Finn was to be responsible for me and Lili, and everyone else below level five was tasked with carrying the extra-large bags.

The target was to reach the fortieth floor barring any mishaps with the floor bosses. With luck, they wouldn't have spawned yet, and we'd get a really juicy haul.

Also, it stood to reason that this dive wasn't gonna be one of those where I pissed myself dry hacking away at whatever moved, because one, I had to get down deep enough with everyone, and two, I also had to make my way back.

Which meant I was carrying a pack for camping with. Though it was little more than a few changes of underwear and a cot and pillow. The provisions would be taken care of by our pack mules—though I preferred to call them the hoard masters.

Because holy shit who doesn't get excited about the looting?!

If I couldn't fight the monsters, then I was looking forward to cutting them up at the very least.

For science.

 _You have issues, Tom._

It's called research.

 _Come up first so I can update your status._

Yes, mom.

 _Not my thing, Tom._

#

 _The land drew closer from a bird's eye view, a copse of trees turned into a forest in the span of a few seconds as feet landed without sound on the grass. Fresh eyes took in the tranquil view, mundane but magical to the old gaze._

 _Her first step vanished into a swirl of white._

 _And the next images came in flurries of rejection, frustration, envy—then joy, as a small light flickered into existence, bright and stable._

#

 **Level 1**

Strength = F 334 - F 374

Endurance = F 392 - E 470

Dexterity = D 501 - D 561

Agility = F 302 - F 347

Magic = C 624 - B 780

Madness Spectrum = I

Tranquil Intervention = I

World Walker = I

Fated Actor = I

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Madness"

Saudade = An area of effect drain spell that takes the magic and life force contained in all within range and transfers it to the user. Targets stronger than the user are able to resist having their magic and life stolen. Has a five-meter radius, and a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Taken from the peace of home / I now stand beyond the veil / The aberrant demands reparation"

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

Enabler = Increases magic by an exceptional amount in a pinch and causes magic damage to siphon life force.

Mania = Increases endurance the longer one stays in battle and gradually wears off after.

Lævateinn = Adds a fire element to all attack magics.

Vindicta = Momentarily increases strength when retaliating against an attacker, the higher the damage received, the stronger the effect.

#

"What did I just see?"

The blue glow faded away from the room filled with all manners of trinkets, the dark blue covers of Loki's bed returning to its deep hue.

"That was when I first came down to this world and met Finn." Loki was sat on my butt. She pressed a sheet of paper against my back.

"Finn was the first member?"

"Then Riveria and Gareth," she said. Loki pat my back. "You can get up now."

I looked back. "So, how much more awesome did I become?"

Loki got off me. "I swear, Tom," she said with the sheet in hand. "You're really going down that edgelord route. Only thing left now is to have you running around with an eyepatch or something."

I stood from her bed and got dressed. "Eh, as long as it makes me stronger." She passed me the paper. "Two new skills? And finally, Despair becomes useful!"

"Don't forget it adds to _all_ attack magics," she said, "but that's not what my sword does though."

"You have a sword?"

"Why _yes_ I have a sword," Loki said. " _Every_ god needs a sword!"

"And Ganesha?"

"Not the point I was trying to make." She pointed at the paper. "The name though, its strange to me. Remember, I'm just pulling these things out of _your_ ass. Soul. Same thing."

"And then you get these weirdly named things? Vindicta… sounds revenge related. Fancy name that sword of yours has, what's it mean?"

"The wounding wand," she said. "And that's not what your skill does, still, sinister effect though."

"I think you meant to say _effective_."

She smirked. "Why would I use the adjective form of a noun on it?" Loki clicked her tongue. "Your English teachers would frown on such crappy use of the language."

"Are we even speaking English?"

"You can't tell?"

"Does it matter?"

"Back to the point," she said. "You've _never_ had anything in your status show up in my language. And then this comes out."

"Maybe its because its part of your blessing?"

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Only a few gods know of my limited authority over fire, and _you_ specifically didn't know this word, nor about my connection to it. It _should've_ been named something else. And yet here we are."

"This is one of those god things?"

"And a Thomas thing apparently."

"Maybe its related to how I'm seeing glimpses into you too?"

"Reasonable, but I'd assume it should be something you learned anyway, not just something out of the blue. And you've yet to gain more than one skill per update."

I clutched my forehead and stood on my tiptoes like Dio. "Maybe it's the start to my rise to power?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"Or maybe its because I was wading in the ashes of Riveria's magic yesterday?"

"Huh," Loki said, "now that you remind me, Lævateinn _is_ part of her chant… its possible."

"Interesting."

Loki shrugged. "We'll deal with this later." She looked me in the eyes. "Take care down there, alright? No monkey business if you can't take the heat." She chuckled.

"I'll come back to you. I promise."

"That goes without saying." She stood up with her arms opened wide. "Well? Don't just make me stand here."

I couldn't help the small laugh at how awkward she was being. I wasn't turning down the intimacy though. "Oh my, Loki, I'm starting to think you actually like me." I hugged her tightly, her small waist snug against mine. I almost forgot how soft her ass was.

"Please stop tugging it off to my ass."

"Ah, sorry, no promises there."

She pinched my side and mumbled something under her breath. "You do know I see _everything_ , right?"

"I see enough into you too," I added.

"Ugh, don't remind me."

#

So apparently, it was a familia rule to have the lower ranked adventurers fight monsters on the upper floors, so the higher levelled ones could preserve their strength. Which meant I was doing all the fighting in a group of thirteen until we got to, maybe the thirteenth floor?

I swung the pick-axe like sword and easily disemboweled the goddamn silverback that socked me in the face. Honestly, fighting monsters without the intention to collect their stones was a whole lot easier than how I normally fought. Because now I didn't have to bother avoiding hitting them in the one-hot kill spot.

"That's not normal," Rakta said.

"It's Thomas," Finn said.

"It's… annoying," Aiz said.

"Aiz?!" Lefiya said.

I stared at the offender.

"Aiz is sulking because of your absurd status, Thomas," Riveria said with a chuckle.

The blonde puffed up her cheeks. "I… needed six months to get this far."

Rakta raised her hand. "Actually, I'm pretty annoyed too."

"Same here," Daffyd added.

"Me too," Cadoc chimed in.

"Mmhmm," Lefiya hummed.

"I don't want to end up like him though," Brynmor said.

Tione shook her head. "How come I never hear any good stories about you?"

I tanked another punch and retaliated with a downward swing and split the silverback's head in two. "That's because none of you stick around long enough to see my good points."

The next silverback exploded into ash when the pick part struck its chest.

"Lili had already spent an entire day with you and she saw none besides your stupid endurance."

"Did you know he has a skill that keeps increasing his endurance the longer he's in battle?" Finn said.

"Oh, so that's why he's the only one fighting," Narvi said. "I thought he was just being his usual self."

"Wait, you guys could've been helping me all this time?"

"You never asked," Tiona said with an innocent look I only felt the utmost rage for but couldn't even bring myself to get properly angry at.

"And you won't get it until either a mind down or you fall unconscious, whichever one comes first," Finn said with a nod.

"I haven't done anything yet!"

"That's _exactly_ why we're getting you out of the way early," Riveria said.

"I'll show you all!"

We reached the thirteenth floor and Finn had me put on this red cloak with a hood before letting me loose. I was still wielding my great sword because of how effective it was at killing everything we'd seen so far, and I was yet to meet something I couldn't kill in one swing. The goblins fell like wheat to the harvest, and the ants' bodies cracked like egg shells. Tsubaki didn't pull any stops with the sword and it showed in the performance.

Compared to the twelfth, this place was an open patchwork of ledges and caves and stairs that led to everywhere else but the next floor. The exit needed a smarter method than just 'reach the end' to find, and it was also the starting point where monsters began using ranged attacks. Not counting the infant dragon, that is.

Sure, I still couldn't fight without relying on my sight like Gareth wanted me to. And really, I wasn't improving on it, so I just gave up and focused instead on making the next hit count—and my status supported my decision, so there it was.

Vengeance was mine!

"Be careful with the fire breath of the hellhounds," Finn said. "Make sure to get them before they get you."

"I've been roasted by the infant dragon before—"

"I knew it!" Aiz said with wide eyes.

"I hate you Thomas," Riveria said.

"I think we're all missing a big point here," Rakta said. "When you say roasted, as in got hit with the fire balls?"

"Pretty sure that's unavoidable if you're hanging on for dear life. And no, I meant fire breath."

Lefiya tilted her head. "But the infant dragon can't breathe fire."

I shrugged. "It did for me."

"Lili has found assuming Thomas is stupid and that running that with everything he does makes accepting everything easier."

I beheaded the large dog with the flaming mouth before kicking that huge rabbit thing with the axe in the face, staggering it before introducing it to the busy end of my blade. "You are _so_ much feistier when you're not carrying a bag."

"Lili is done taking shit from stupid adventurers."

"Yeah, you tell 'em Lili!" Finn said, pumping his fist to the air.

" _If I think of Lili as our child it makes more sense… I see now_."

"Uhh Cadoc, I think its nicer to walk next to you," Narvi said.

"What? No. You stay there next to Tione and make sure she doesn't get attacked," Brynmor hurriedly said.

"She's a strong independent woman and she can take care of herself," Narvi said.

You've been really having fun with these people, haven't you?

 _I've had_ years _with them Thomas. Let that sink in._

"Wait, didn't supporters have that skill where their status increases based on how much they're carrying?"

"Lili is not comfortable with this line of speculation."

"Wait, he might have something good to say," Finn said.

"So why not give her all of our stuff and this huge sword?" I presented my precious blade. "She's carrying the blade, right? What's the difference between swinging a sword anyway? You're just carrying it _thata_ way." I swung the blade in a lazy arc.

"He's not wrong," Daffyd said. "This is how Gareth feels all the time, isn't it?"

"Probably," Rakta said. "Spending time with Thomas is at best disgusting, and at worst enlightening."

"Wasn't that the other way around?"

"Sounds about right," Narvi said.

And I failed to notice the large plume of flames coming at me from the left. Whatever, my endurance was probably real damn high already. But the flames only brushed against me and only felt like the warm exhaust of a generator set on full blast: hot, but not horrible.

The dog lost its head to my blade.

"Salamander wool isn't supposed to do that," Cadoc said.

"Thomas," Brynmor added.

"Bullshit," Lili finalized.

With renewed confidence, I ran towards the pack of dogs and halberd wielding bunnies and just let my sword do the talking. The increased weight of the blade made it strong enough to crush the stone tomahawks of the Almiraj, and as long as I made sure to retaliate, I was able to break through their formations without a problem.

However, things took a turn for the weird.

I rushed the next hellhound—

—and fell down a hole when the ground gave way beneath me together with a section of Dungeon wall.

Then the stones were blown away, and I saw the level fours and threes had come to my rescue.

"You shouldn't charge without caution here, Tom," Daffyd said. He was holding my by my ankle.

"Trap chutes open up leading to the lower floors, and some of them even connect you further down," Brynmor added.

"You mean shortcut?"

"No," Rakta said.

Finn clapped. "Okay everyone, down the shortcut."

Lili frowned.

"Finn is talking weird," Aiz said. She looked at Riveria. "Thomas's fault?"

Riveria nodded.

#

It was a good thing Daffyd was nice enough to carry me going down because we ended up going straight for the sixteenth floor after another two chutes opened just as we were about to land. On one hand, fuck the thirteenth floor, and on the other, yay for fast travelling. Unfortunately, this place didn't come with a Snakes and Ladders rule so the shortcuts only went one way.

Daffyd caught me just before I hit the floor then set me down to face a group of three minotaurs.

"Moment of truth then," Finn said with a smile. "Go, Thomas!"

The rest of the party cheered and sent me off with their well wishes, then I saw the Ironhands palming some coins with Narvi and Lili. Good that she was getting along with them, but bad because the girl was developing some strange habits. Knowing the Loki familia, it was seemed like a prerequisite.

The minotaurs easily towered over my five-foot four with their at least six and a half. They also had halberds, but Daffyd was kind enough to steal their weapons and break them so I could last a bit longer, according to him.

"Use the pick-end!" he said. "Their hides are thick and fibrous."

I stepped up to the challenge and readied myself, standing my ground as the bipedal monsters charged.

"Are we also throwing him against the Goliath?" Brynmor said.

"We've already had him face everything, why not let him have his first monster rex?" Narvi said.

"Lili would just like to say Lili will not be cleaning up what remains of Thomas."

"There's always letting Lefiya end it all with one spell," Tiona said.

The minotaur furthest to the left punched, the middle one thrust with its horns, and the right-most one settled back.

I swung my sword into the fist coming for me and the blade destroyed its hand, while I raised my shin to meet the coming headbutt.

Horns bounced against the greaves and threw me backwards legs first into the ground.

I rolled along on my side avoiding the stomping bulls and stood unarmed, my sword left behind from where I flew.

"Never let go of your weapon!" Narvi said.

I took out the pick on my left thigh and ran back into the fray. From what I'd seen, bipedal monsters usually had their crystals behind the sternum equivalent on the human body. Goblins, kobolds, war shadows, orcs, and silverbacks all followed that trend, and I was willing to bet these guys did too. Although the short range meant I'd be coming in dangerously close, but… my endurance should be able to tank it, I think.

I charged in with the pick ready to strike, aiming for the front most minotaur meeting my charge. Horned animals usually had thicker skulls by the forehead to facilitate butting, but no amount of bone could ever protect the eyes.

" _Madness_." The mists engulfed me.

The bull snorted before dipping its head and thrusting its horns at my chest, and that's when my hammer dashed just above its snout, removing one eye and casting its head to the ground as the creature started blazing with a deep black.

It started screaming.

Then the one behind it pushed the beast away only for the black flames to jump and engulf it too. With the effect of Lævateinn, my debuff had finally turned into a proper attack magic though I didn't know or had any indication as to how strong that added element was. Were the minotaurs screaming from hallucinations or from burning? I wasn't too sure how to test the hypothesis unless I could restrain them and let the things continue burning.

There was smoke coming from their bodies, but the mists didn't pass any heat back to me—so I was effectively this black torch now. Pretty fucking cool. Really goddamn edgy. And damn was it just so _satisfying!_

I took out the short sword and covered it too in my mists—no, _flames_.

"Those minotaurs are writhing in pain," Lili said.

"Thomas's magic… is strange," Aiz said.

"No kidding," Tione followed-up.

I ran straight for the not yet burning minotaur who was watching its comrades rolling on the ground and spasming while they foamed at the mouth.

" _Here's Tommy!"_ I lashed out with the pick and caught the bull with the pointy end, the tip easily digging into flesh as the flames spread from there and had the beast screaming and lashing out before I could grab on.

Its flailing threw me away, but the damage was already done. I went back for the screaming minotaurs I disabled earlier, but one was already climbing back to its knees.

Too bad.

I lunged for it—and was swatted from the air with a meaty arm, but it didn't even hurt anymore. The burning reignited on its arm as I got back up and ran towards the downed one instead, elated and just so damn happy I was making them hurt. The other one reared back as I neared, and the other one behind me was walking into the far wall over and over.

Perhaps this was one of those mental effects I was yet to inflict? Despair did have a chance to inflict three of them, fear… uhh, madness, and confusion I think.

"What's even happening right now?" Cadoc said.

"Mmhmm, it's still creepy alright," Tiona said.

I grabbed onto the one still on its belly and started stabbing and hacking as it screamed—before the thing burst into ash and I landed on the ground. The other minotaur finally got back to its feet and made a beeline for Finn and the others.

" _My magic has a fire element now_ , d _on't let it touch you_."

"Why does Thomas sound so weird?" Lefiya said.

"I swear you are such absolute bullshit!" Tione said.

My legs were so light, and I caught up to the bull in no time—before I tackled it into the ground, stabbing and hacking just like before. We stopped rolling just in front of Riveria. " _Pardon the intrusion_."

"Carry on," she said.

The beast burst into ashes.

I got up and ran for the last minotaur.

"Lygerfang above!" Finn said.

I dove to the side as dust exploded all around me.

"Will he be fine?" Rakta said.

"If any, he still has Gareth's armor," Narvi said.

A gigantic paw slapped me out of the cloud—and this endurance booster thing was simply the icing on the cake. I was feeling just dandy and already running back into the thing that just asked for a burning.

"Over there," Cadoc said.

The Lygerfang was swatting the black flames away from its paw when I found it and vengeance was delivered by a swift stab into the gut with the short sword. Followed by another, then another—

Before a great pair of jaws closed down on my torso, but it went slack just as quickly after the pick penetrated and crushed its skull.

When the dust cleared, there were no other monsters. I saw my great sword a ways away from me, and the lygerfang's corpse had stopped burning. The minotaur had also finally fallen to its knees but was no longer in flames. There was a horn left behind somewhere close. I dispelled Despair.

I sheathed my weapons before walking over and picking up my wayward blade, and the group advanced towards me.

"Two days ago, we had to carry you here," Narvi said.

"I got two new skills just this morning."

"How many do you have?" Tione asked.

"Five skills, three magics, and four dev abilities."

Lili kicked a rock as she screeched. "Lili objects at labelling Thomas a level one!"

Rakta raised her hand. "I don't have any magic and I only have two skills as a level four. Can I complain to Loki?"

Daffyd threw his arms up to the air.

Aiz raised her hand. "…Bullshit." She nodded, then smiled like she was satisfied with herself.

Riveria preened like a proud mother.

"Come on, I need to find another monster soon or else my endurance buff will wear off."

Finn shook his head. "You heard the guy, let's move people."

#

Three to four minotaurs was manageable, but any higher than that and it was only too slow, so Cadoc, the other level three in the group, finally stepped in to help. Between us, we made short work of the monsters, with him funneling the beasts so I could disable them. I healed as fast as I got damaged, and it made for a strange sensation to be cycling between wanting to puke my guts out and feeling like a hundred bucks.

I didn't know if the endurance buff had given way, but I wasn't dying so that probably counted for something.

I couldn't slash through the minotaurs' bodies but taking off their legs was enough with my swings while the lygerfangs' front paws dropped with my counters. Take one give one back, Vindicta allowed me to leverage the damage I received for that boost in strength while Mania and Enabler kept me in the fight. I figured the burning effect counted towards the life drain effect so as long as I had enough monsters burning then I was fine.

The rocky fields of the sixteenth floor gave way to the massive expanse of seventeenth—but the Goliath didn't make an appearance.

"Maybe someone already defeated it?" Tiona said.

"Too bad Tom, maybe next time," Finn said.

Cadoc and I still fought through the monsters and led the way to the chute down to the eighteenth. As one, the party descended and the glassed earth and deep gashes where the fighting was thickest when I last went here were already healing, replaced with fresh earth while the greenery slowly encroached on the battle scars.

I'd seen the Dungeon heal itself before whenever monsters were born from the cracks—but never on a scale like this. The swathes of destruction spanned the area of maybe upwards of twenty football fields of destroyed forest and landscapes, but now I could scarcely make them out from the rest of the floor.

"That's impressive."

"Yes," Finn said. "The Dungeon can work fast when it feels like it."

Everyone there besides Lili just accepted it at face value, and the sheer magnitude of what just happened was lost to the bounds of magic as an excuse. Now that I thought of it, I had heard of magic generate matter before in the form of Riveria's ice and seen it in her flames, but for the Dungeon to create permanent structures out of seemingly nothing was a feat nothing short of miraculous.

Our group trekked down the stony path lined with grass, the gradual slope continuing some sort of natural way into the forest. The trees didn't grow along certain winding lines through the forest, and it was visible even from the cliff we came from.

"This is Lili's first time to the eighteenth floor."

"And it won't be your last," Finn added.

Our group had me and Cadoc leading the way, ready to take on any monsters that cropped up from the lower floors. There were the dragonflies called Gun Libellas and the Bugbears that Narvi killed before.

A great paw caught me in the torso and had me fly through two trees before stopping at a third one. I'd been continuously battling for god knows how long now.

 _It's been about four hours since you guys left._

Thanks, Loki.

Being able to talk to Loki like this whenever also meant I served as time keeper for the group, and going back, besides the feeling of my guts getting twisted into knots, I was back in the fight and already ablaze and gunning for the bugbear.

I threw my great sword away and got my pick and short sword out before latching on. " _Madness_!"

"We'll bypass Rivira and go straight for the nineteenth," Finn said. "I doubt we'd see anything worthwhile there in the meantime. We'll aim for the next safe spot in the twenty-eighth before making camp."

"Thomas," Daffyd said. "Finish up already.

I kept stabbing into the beast in and out as I kicked away any attempts from it to grab me. " _A little busy here_."

"I can't help but feel sorry for the monsters Thomas meets," Lefiya said.

"I can't believe Thomas can keep on bathing in that much blood and _not_ get sick of it," Narvi said.

"You should've seen him on the first day," Rakta said. "He was butchering monsters for sport."

"W-was I like that?" Aiz said.

"Heavens, no, Aiz, you were a proper young lady—reckless, but not crazy," Riveria said.

I shoved the short sword through the bugbear's back and twisted it hard, before the monster burst into a pile of ashes. _"I can hear you all dammit!_ "

"Oh," Tiona said, "Tione did that last expedition too, remember? With the Virga."

"Don't lump me in with the likes of him!" Tione said.

"I wonder if throwing Thomas into a horde of monsters is a good idea?" Daffyd said.

"Wait, no. Not this deep at least."

"You've been doing the same anyway," Brynmor added.

Thankfully, Finn stopped their disillusioned ramblings before I ended up flying ass first into a bunch of monsters. The natural path eventually ended with this passage of roots that extended outwards from the hole like cracks against the walls and ground. The inside of it was illuminated by patches of moss compared to the luminous crystals that dotted the upper floors.

"Am I still supposed to fight my way through here?"

"Let's have you solo the first thing that comes, deal?" Finn said.

"Do level ones make it this far?"

"With good enough parties, yes," Riveria said. "But they're usually not the ones fighting in the frontlines."

"Doesn't that mean I shouldn't be fighting this deep?"

"Thomas," Rakta said. "You shouldn't have been fighting anymore once we went past the sixteenth floor—not alone at least."

"Aren't you glad, Tom?" Daffyd said. "You're above the norm for a level one already!"

"Bullshit," Aiz said with a thumb up.

"I'm just annoyed you haven't collapsed yet from a mind down," Tione said.

"I don't think I can keep using my magic for that long and that often," Lefiya said. "Sorry, Thomas, but I'll have to agree with everyone on this." There was no remorse in that poor excuse of a smile she showed me, her lip was even slightly twitching upwards.

"Get on with it then!" Tiona said. "Forward march!"

We exited the passage into this winding road of… wood and moss, that opened into this great expanse of trees and vegetation. It reminded me of the jungle biomes from Minecraft except less blocky and warmer—since I wasn't sitting in an air-conditioned room but was instead walking along this fantastic place.

The light from the moss filtered through bunches of leaves and way above the ceiling the place was lit up by crystals that shone like the sun, bathing the place in a hundred shades of green and some smatterings of other hues from the flowers and fruits.

We were then greeted by these bipedal lizards who reminded me of a more grim dark version of Feraligatr. Then they picked up some flowers and split them into a short sword and shield.

"Oi! What the hell?!"

"Yeah, see, this is why Gareth keeps telling you to stop grabbing onto the monsters," Finn said.

"Five hundred Varis says Thomas won't care," Daffyd said.

"You're on!" Lili said.

"Well?" Tione had her arms crossed. "We're waiting."

I took off my great sword and passed it to Brynmor. "Lemme borrow your buckler?"

He shrugged and passed me the round shield, it was larger and heavier than the one I used. I took out my pick and wielded the two together, then met the lizardman.

Rakta and Cadoc were already engaged with the other monsters, the other lizardmen together with some bugbears and vouivres. The latter were half-snake humanoid women with scales covering up the good parts, and a bright red jewel on their forehead that _wasn't_ their magic crystal.

The lizard had its flower shield presented towards me while its other hand waited with an overhand stance with its sword, ready to strike. It was the same form Gareth showed me before, and it was either them instinctively taking that stance or the Dungeon birthed them with the knowledge, and either explanation was a terrifying thought.

I was wielding a blunt weapon while it had a hacking and stabbing one. It had more optons with its attacks, but I had the weapon for breaking through armor.

It all boiled down now to who was stronger, and who had the better technique.

I inched closer and the lizardman thrust out its shield as it lunged.

" _Madness_." Black flames engulfed me as I hammered the shield away with the other end of my weapon.

The sword thrust out from behind its shield and towards my gut.

I placed the buckler between me and the blade, making sure to catch it with the boss before rounding my swing towards the lizardman's head.

It weaved its neck away then checked me with its shoulder, pushing me back. It readied its stance again.

My magic didn't catch on its weapons, and it was fighting with a high priority for caution. Again, if this were instinct or actual conscious thought, then either explanation was a shitty thing.

With each floor we descended, the enemies grew stronger and stronger and my gear would protect me less and less. I couldn't keep up my usual tactic of relying on my gear—but at least now I had some proper ranged magic attacks… to some extent.

 _"Taken from the peace of home."_

The lizardman lunged with the shield first.

 _"I now stand beyond the veil."_

It punched with its shield like a buckler.

I hopped backward with my shield forward and received the thrust of its sword again on the boss before stepping in close. _"The aberrant demands reparation."_

Black exploded and the refreshing cool seeped into my bones as the magic receded. And the lizardman flinched as some of the black light clung onto him.

I bashed its sword away in that split second of panic and engulfed it in Despair—and the thing started writhing on the ground. My magic didn't proc this much before so it was a welcome break how it was disabling these things so often now.

And just out of curiosity, I crushed its knees and elbows with the hammer and raised the output of Despair to as hard as I could make it burn.

It writhed and screamed, louder than before and smoking too. I couldn't smell anything strange from it however, like no burning flesh or anything so perhaps my fire wasn't burning like a proper flame?

The lizard disintegrated before anything could properly happen… but I hadn't even touched its stone yet. Perhaps the magic or its heat ended up damaging the crystal?

"Thomas," Lefiya said, "was that necessary?"

I dispelled my magic. "I needed to see how hot my magic burns now."

"But to do… that."

Rakta sighed. "Like I said, he does that too often."

"And I thought Bete was cruel," Daffyd added.

Finn clapped his hand. "Alright, alright. Come on everyone, we've still got a long way to go."

Cadoc and Rakta had already finished their thing while I was burning the lizard.

"Thomas," Finn said, "you can fall back now."

"Finally!"

"But if you find some way to support the front line, don't hesitate to say so."

"Sure, maybe I can send out waves of magic or something."

"Like Bete's Flosvirt?" Brynmor said.

"I'm not so sure I'd be comfortable knowing Thomas can throw those black flames around." Narvi had on an uneasy smile. "Those monsters back there weren't screaming from pain."

"How could you tell? It all sounded the same to me."

Lili just stared at me.

"I still think Thomas's magic is creepy," Tiona said with a nod.

" _Thomas_ is creepy," Tione said.

Aiz nodded.

We resumed the march with Rakta, Cadoc, and Brynmor in the lead, and I was now carrying the pack Brynmor had which contained a portion of our rations—that is, one third of that which must be protected at all costs minus life and limb.

I stepped over the root along the road, unable to hide my awe at the gargantuan structures that towered from _inside_ the dungeon. The scent of leaves, flowers, and fruits mingled in the air minus the rotten foliage, and it was an entrancing experience. I was in the middle of the formation with Lili and surrounded by the others, and Finn in front of us.

"Oh yeah, Finn, did that Fels guy ever contact you again?"

"Yeah," he said. "He came to me while I was out drinking with Gareth."

"You went out drinking without me?!" Tione said.

"And, how'd it go?"

"We still got paid so that was nice." Finn shrugged. "Wasn't as big as the original fee, but for a failed quest, it wasn't bad."

"How much?"

"Three hundred million."

"So you're telling me we could've just use those funds?!" Tiona said.

"That's for the familia," Riveria said.

Aiz's pouting face greeted the elf.

She looked away. "That's not going to work Aiz, you must pay for your own."

"And that much money is still not enough to pay for those Durandals you ordered, right?" Just remembering the numbers Tsubaki quoted made me feel the beginnings of a headache.

"Not even close." Finn laughed. "Why else do you think I agreed to come down in the first place?"

"How far into the red are we?"

"Hmm, come on, let's hurry up and get us some loot!"

"Finn? Answer me, Finn."

He didn't bother answering and we just kept going.

We stopped at a copse of fruit-bearing trees which Rakta and the others collected these starfruit-looking things from. They were about three times as large as the ones from back home, and when opened they contained these little green balls that tasted like… matcha?

"Matcha," Aiz said. She opened a pod for herself and popped three into her mouth, chewing with a sort of downplayed gusto that just didn't quite reach that sufficient energy level. She liked the stuff, I was sure of at least, but the enthusiasm just left this dissonance between the lack of a blissful expression and the intensity of that monotone.

"Ah, so precious," Lefiya said. She also had a pod in hand and was eating.

We also picked up these berry-like things that tasted like potatoes, and then some red bananas that… well, tasted like bananas. It was kinda disappointing.

"Captain," Tione said. "Say ahh."

Brynmor took out a smaller sack from my pack and filled it with the fruits, each one organized in their own pockets.

#

With our supplies bolstered, the nineteenth floor eventually gave way to the twentieth, and the spiraling canopies were replaced with a maze of roots and tree trunks that reached all the way up to the ceiling. They looked like pillars reaching for the sky and the leaves covered up most of the light from the Dungeon's crystals, but visibility didn't suffer too badly thanks to the glowing moss.

The monsters here were still the same as above, but larger. Lizardmen moved faster, the bugbears were stronger, the vouivres were longer, and there started to appear these flaming birds.

"Fucking things!" I held up my great sword and presented the broad side like a shield. " _Madness_."

The bird dinged against the blade and was engulfed in black—and I stomped it dead.

"Thomas, protect Lefiya," Finn said with his spear out. He was intercepting all the birds that came for Lili and the luggage.

"Understood." I dashed towards where Lefiya was who raised her staff.

"I'll be counting on you," she said. The space by her feet began to glow with a soft pink light. " _Proud warrior, snipers of the forest_."

The light formed a complex pattern—the mark of her mage developmental ability. It was the defining quality of any magic user to receive their own mark, and it was an impressive sight.

Brynmor had already taken back his shield and I was really starting to regret not bringing mine. I slashed at a bugbear that got too close, careful to avoid getting hit. I wasn't about to gamble on tanking anything since I'd already lost the charge from earlier, but as long as I could counter properly, Vindicta should still proc.

The black flames grazed its belly, and the thing started to clutch its head and scream. My status effects procing so often were probably an effect of me fighting where I shouldn't even be standing on—because when I really thought it through, I was in a shit ton of danger just being here.

 _"Take up your bows before the advancing plunderers."_

But it also meant almost everything that touched my magic was disabled, so it was a constant balance of risk versus reward. I was properly gaining experience here instead of just riding on people's coattails, contributing like a proper member instead of just some guy who got by thanks to some freebies.

I swung at the wing of the dragonfly who got too close, and Rakta finished off its writhing form.

"Answer the call of your brethren and ready your arrows."

Finn and Riveria were hanging back with Lili, Tiona, Tione, and Aiz, while us grunts were doing the heavy lifting for now—since come the thirtieth floor, those guys would be the ones fighting tooth and nail next.

Now if only I could send it out in waves.

A vouivre left its tail unattended and I took the chance to cut it off with my sword—the black flames travelling up its body like wildfire.

Brynmor beheaded it a second later.

 _"Tinge them with flame, the lamplight of the forest."_

The magic circle grew in intensity and even from where I stood, I felt the hairs on my arms and neck stand on end. She was building up a butt ton of magic in that spell.

I beat back the next bugbear and blocked another firebird, while Rakta, Brynmor, Daffyd and Cadoc tightened the formation, our flanks slowly giving way to funnel the monsters into a line.

 _"Release them, the fire arrows of the fairies."_

We held the line.

 _"Falling like rain, burn away the savages."_

Light bloomed behind Lefiya like a thousand-armed star as the brilliance built into a crescendo. Daffyd and the others opened the battle line to let her have a full view of the horde.

"Fusillade Fallarica!"

The petals of light lit ablaze as they took flight through the air, closing the distance between the caster and her targets. Bolts of burning magic rained down fire against the monsters, impaling and exploding and destroying them where they stood, unable to fall back or even lash out one last desperate attack as the beasts burst into ash.

When the dust cleared, nothing was left of the monsters that swarmed us.

"Good," Riveria said. "Well done Lefiya."

The others in the vanguard donned their packs again and resumed the march. I took a deep breath and slapped my cheeks. _That_ , was a proper spell. It took so much time to set up though, and it made me wonder whether focusing on casting while moving or casting faster was possible.

Then again, all that happened in just a few seconds so who was I to say anything?

Somewhere on the way to the stairs down the twenty-first, we stopped by a bluish tree with some bulbous roots. Brynmor chopped a few of the spherical bulbs away and stored them with Rakta. He saw me looking and passed me a chip, he bit into the thing.

I bit into the chip and had a burst of soda water fill my mouth. It was a sweet and tangy taste, refreshing and fizzy.

"What the hell are all these things?"

"Food from the Dungeon," Rakta said, "what else?"

"I mean like what feeds on these? The monsters are born from the Dungeon right? So why would they need to eat?"

"Because they're alive?" Cadoc said.

"Wait, no, I mean… okay, fair." I scratched my cheek. "So monsters have to eat too…"

"Its either fruits or they feed from the pantries," Lefiya said. "They are these crystals that release this liquid that monsters can feed on."

"That's new." And where monsters gathered to feed probably meant rare spawns or drops. "I wanna visit these places sometime."

"I can take you to one," Tiona said. "But not now, I still need to make some money."

We then found the stairs at a wide clearing devoid of trees.

Together, we went down the twenty second floor. It was a strange place that had us walking over dense foliage, so dense that I couldn't tell whether what we were walking on were bushes or trees or whatever. They had thin trunks when I looked through the gaps, and it was enough for us to jump up and down from and still not feel the branches giving way.

Monsters spawned by coming up from the canopy, mostly bugbears and large mantises. We killed whatever we met, and didn't—rather, couln't—really gather anything from here, and just passed through. There were a lot more birds and dragonflies too than the earlier floors, so that bit sucked.

We eventually got through just fine.

The passage to the next floor was a small opening in the tree walk way ringed with stones and the insides was a deep red wood illuminated with glowing red mushrooms.

"Whatever you do, do not eat those," Cadoc said while pointing at the fungi.

"They make you see things?"

"What?" the dwarf said. "No, they're poison."

"Oh."

"Why do you sound disappointed?" Narvi asked. "Actually, forget I asked that."

"How're you holding up, fellow level one?"

"Lili would first like to deny any level-based relations to Thomas. Lili is doing alright, the captain and Tione are making sure Lili is not harmed at all."

"So, about that thing I was talking about earlier."

"Yeah," Finn said, "let's do that when we get back."

"Lili hates you, Thomas."

We descended the passage to the twenty-third and the first thing I saw was the huge ass hive of bees smack dab in the middle of the floor. The red mushrooms grew in places here and there, but the majority of the floor's space was dedicated to giving that huge ass bulb as much berth as possible.

"This place is called the Hive," Lefiya said.

"I noticed."

"We get a lot of requests for the secretions the monsters make," Daffyd added.

"Let me guess, they're used for potions?"

"How'd you know?" Tiona asked.

"Lucky guess."

Needless to say, we were eventually swarmed by the monsters. And out of sheer annoyance, Finn had me grab onto his spear while I was engulfed in Despair—and he swung me around like a fucking bug trap. The wasps and bees and dragonflies fell like… well, flies, and the others got to finish them off without issue.

"We might be able to work with this."

"I was expecting you'd get offended by this," Finn said. He was still swinging me around and using me like a living mace. A magical, living made.

"Oh, I am. But it's too effective not to get won over."

"I swear there's something wrong with him in the head," Rakta said.

"Lili thought that was already established ten floors ago?"

Aiz was looking at me with an intense gaze. She drew her sword. "Finn, may I borrow Thomas?"

"Shouldn't I have a say in this?"

Finn raised a brow. "What are you thinking of?"

"I can lift Thomas with my magic."

"Please don't."

They didn't listen.

Aiz lifted me up into the air with a tornado that funneled all the flying bugs to hit me on their way down. It was like she was flushing them down the toilet and I was the cake to make all the solid bits that bit easier to bear. I was pelted by spiny carapaces and avoided a sting too close a few times too many.

But below, the monsters died as they touched the ground, and when the monsters started screaming because of my magic, they summoned more bugs to them just like the ants back in the seventh floor. They made a killing with destroying the monsters, and soon enough Lili had a sizeable pack of magic crystals.

The blonde finally let me down.

"Good job," Aiz said with a thumb up.

"Lili has seen the light."

"How much time would it take for us to fill all the sacks we have?" Finn said.

"Aiz only had to levitate Thomas for about fifteen minutes?" Riveria said. "We'd need a few hours perhaps to fill three large packs."

"Okay, we'll do that next time then."

"Wait, I haven't agreed to this yet."

#

The next passage was a hole that glowed blue against the uniform red of the twenty-third floor, and when we went through it, long spiraling bridges of wood crisscrossed the entire space. It was a bit like the seventeenth floor minus the floor boss, and instead of rocks the place had said wooden bridges instead.

Spirals of wood would connect one passage to another, or one ledge to another or one bridge to a ledge and other such combinations. The foliage was also concentrated along the wooden bridges so the green trailed behind the bark.

What caught the eye however, was the carpet of monsters migrating down the passageway of the twenty-fifth floor. And by carpet I meant like there was no space to see ground at all from how thick their ranks were. I saw for the first time these deer with large glowing horns walking together with these masses of glowing moss, these muscular goblins that were about the size of the orcs, and these furred humanoids with the large fangs.

Good thing we were standing high above on a ledge and away from view then.

"Please don't throw me down there."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Finn said.

"But we have a level seven!"

"And you're a level one," Rakta said.

Narvi sighed. "Finn can't cover for everyone, Tom."

"I take it this doesn't always happen? The monsters I mean."

"Not at all," Cadoc said, "not ever."

"I can destroy them," Aiz said.

"And we can collect the stones after, pretty sure we can still accommodate them." I pointed at my bag.

"But it's the high value drops that will net us the best income," Daffyd said.

"True, but if Finn has a bad feeling, I'm inclined to not act on that stupidity."

"I never expected to hear that from you," Tione said.

"I'm all for stupid crap as long as it works."

"I'm rather mortified, but I feel like I should agree with Thomas for this," Riveria said. "We have no choice but to fight all those monsters to get down the twenty-fifth floor."

"But since they're moving away, doesn't it mean that whatever is causing this is on this floor instead?" Lefiya said.

"The lady has a point. I guess we can keep going then?"

"Or maybe we should investigate this place first?" Finn said. "We never know, but it could always be related to whatever's happening on the surface and on the deeper floors."

"Fair enough, if it happened on either end, then happening in between isn't that big of a logical stretch. But why would monsters move away from a floor anyway? And how come I've never seen this many in one place on any floor before?"

"Maybe it's just because we're deep enough?" Tiona said.

"Usually monsters that didn't get destroyed on a floor move to the pantry." Lefiya held a finger to her cheek. "So maybe there was a cave-in in the pantry?"

Finn bit his thumb. "But if there aren't any adventurers in this area, then the Dungeon wouldn't have any reason to react."

"Maybe they died?" Brynmor said.

"If it was that recent, then this big of a movement would not have been possible. And this many spawns makes me think there's a person making the monsters go away," Riveria said.

"Which means we _ought_ to check it out, right?"

"We should split up," Rakta said.

"What? No! You never split up when there's something up!"

"We'll cover more ground that way," Tione said.

"More ground is the last of our concerns in case we really are dealing with the same people or whatever it is that's controlling those monsters."

"Lili supports Thomas with this."

"Me too," Aiz said.

"This path they are taking originates from the Northern pantry," Lefiya said. "Our target should be there."

"Then we should head to the Northern pantry," Finn said. "Together. But first, I need to take care of something. Tione, could you take care of Lili for a bit?"

"Anything for you Finn!" Tione said.

Then he jumped down.

The monsters didn't stand a chance.

We followed behind Finn with a casual pace and met up with him near the entrance to the twenty-fifth. Corpses littered the floor and the smell of blood filled the air while not a single speck was on his immaculate self.

He pointed to the opposite side of the passage. "The Northern pantry's over there."

Within a few minutes of walking, we reached a dead-end, a green wall that was of a different color than the surrounding wood. It didn't take a genius to know this was the thing we were supposed to be looking for.

"The way should be here," Aiz said. She touched the mass. "It's soft."

"Yes," Lefiya added. "The Northern pantry should be just behind this cave."

I touched it too. "It feels like plant stem."

"Tom, please notify Loki," Finn said.

Hey Loki, Finn wants to talk to you about the thing we found.

 _Same drill then._

"Loki. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. If we come in and it's nothing, that's a win. If there _is_ something, then you best be prepared."

"We should be fine," Finn said. "But just to be sure, have Bete together with a squad of level fours wait by the entrance of the twenty-fourth floor.

"Loki. That's alright, need anything else?"

"Wish us luck."

"Thomas. That's not reassuring."

 _Eh, you'll be fine._

"Lili, Thomas, stay behind me," Finn said. "Tione, Tiona, Aiz, you three lead. Cadoc, Lefiya, get behind Thomas. Rakta and the others, in front of me."

We changed up our formation as told, leaving behind our packs just outside the cave in case we needed the full range of our movement. The potions we brought with us were distributed according to our needs, mind potions to those with magic, and more stamina potions to the vanguard.

"Ready," we all said as one.

"Also, can we avoid talking when we get inside? Just in case there really is something there."

"Agreed, everyone refrain from talking unless its important. We'll want to make our entrance as silent as possible. Bite down on a piece of cloth if it helps you avoid screaming should something unexpected come up."

"Oh captain, you know I can take it."

Narvi and the others groaned.

"So not the time for that Tione."

Finn rubbed his temples. "Aiz, open it up."

The blonde summoned her wind about her and made mince out of the organic wall, opening a hole as the material lost its integrity where she ground away at it. Inside the passage, the floor, ceiling, and walls were of the same color as the obstacle we just destroyed.

We went in one by one, and the floor had the same fleshy feel and the glowing moss was replaced by glowing flowers.

After everyone had come in, we took our first steps into the unexpected segue to the otherwise peaceful dive. The hole closed behind us. My stomach sank as the blood pounded away at my ears. This looked like the start of a very bad horror movie with a just as bad ending involving everyone dying.

Finn whispered too low for me to hear. Aiz and the others started moving. We walked as one, keeping pace with the vanguard.

Our footfalls were muffled by the fleshy ground, with Lili clutched tight to my hand. Shoulders were tense, and the others all had focused looks directed in front. Rakta and Daffyd looked here and there every now and then, and Narvi and Brynmor kept their weapons levelled, Riveria, even when skulking still looked the image of poise and grace.

The vanguard stopped in their tracks.

Finn moved up to them, then he pointed at the ceiling. Everyone's gaze followed where he directed us and just barely against the low light, I could make out the outline of the Violas' distinctive mouths.

Loki, looks like we hit the jackpot with this.

 _Damn, I'll let Freya and Hephaestus know._

Please and thank you.

Finn moved back into formation, then signaled for everyone to converge on his location. We huddled together with the monsters just in front of us.

"We've got no choice but to go loud if we proceed any further," Finn said loud enough for me and Lili to hear.

"These fleshy walls and the pathway earlier closing seems to imply these walls can close in on or separate us."

"Can we snipe them with Lefiya's magic?" Tiona asked.

"We can move back further into the passage and have her do her chant, but it removes the element of surprise."

"That's assuming there's something waiting for us at the end," Tione said.

"The only thing of note here in the pantry is the crystal that can sustain monsters, and if we can eat Dungeon fruits, then it wouldn't be a stretch to say a person can also drink the stuff."

"Actually, people can't, it's poison to us," Lefiya said.

"Well what if it wasn't poison to them?"

 _Tsk tsk, recursive justification. Shame on you, Thomas._

"Well, we had a theory there might've been a tamer behind it, right? So, they might be feeding their monsters here?"

"Not impossible,' Daffyd said.

The low green light of the flowers reflected steady gazes—minus Lili's but that was to be expected.

"Get ready to battle," Finn said. "If they've set up a trap, then it means there's something important here they want to keep guarding. Remember, these things react to magic so no using yours, Thomas. The vanguard will engage in close quarters, and the rest of us will be just a few feet from them. We'll assume these walls can separate us so let's stick together as close as possible."

We all nodded, and went back to formation.

"On my mark then," Finn said, biting his thumb.


	10. Vol 1 Chapter 9

**Volume 1**

 **Chapter 9**

"On my mark then," Finn said, biting his thumb.

Rakta carried Lili, and Brynmor carried me. I held fast to his shoulders. He nodded. Sweat trailed down my cheek. The place was damp, and the low light of the flowers gave everything an eerie glow. I couldn't see much further than a few meters ahead, and only with enough effort was I able to see the Violas. Finn and the others though, I guess they could see more, which then called to attention how the status buffed up the senses or whatever.

But that was a story for another day.

"One…"

Narvi and Daffyd readied their swords and shields. These two were in front of my and Lili's chaperones and in hindsight, it would've been safer to meet up with Bete and the reinforcements first and to leave us two weaklings behind. But we didn't know whether we had a time limit or not after already finding the wall or if this lead would just disappear or something. We failed the mission Fels gave us earlier, and it nagged at the back of my mind whether things would've been better or not if we succeeded.

This felt like a chance at redemption more than anything. Caution was the better part of valor, but we still had a level seven even after everything. And if he couldn't take it… well, any hopes of going home after that would be, not as easy.

"Two…"

I slowed the rush of breath, stilling the hammering in my chest as time ground to a snail's pace.

Tione brought out a pair of kukri shaped short swords, and Tiona flourished her stupidly large double-bladed slab thing. If she were compensating for something, then it wasn't working too well because swords were intended as flattened implements and that just didn't help the cause. Really. She should've gone for a hammer or maybe a pair of flails if she didn't feel like being subtle.

 _Shush you, let her do her thing._

"Mark!"

Time lurched forward as a wall of wind crashed against my face and Aiz became a blur of silver and steel burning towards the Violas.

Tione and Tiona didn't lose in speed behind her, the three's blades glinting against the pale glow as our group shadowed their thundering charge. I'd already figured my weapons secured but at the frantic pace we tore at, my three pieces threatened to come loose at any moment. I tightened the straps by my thighs and kept one hand on the great sword's hilt.

"Brace!" Finn said. He pointed up and forward with his spear.

Countless mouths burst from the walls and ceiling with a rhymeless rhythm of cracking stone, each one crowned by a dark mane of purple and decked out with a nightmare of teeth. Their thick trunks twisted and converged towards the vanguard in senseless arcs as the fleshy cover tore where they sprouted from.

The blonde jumped first, her rapier wrapped in wind.

After wielding magic myself, I found there was only so much it could do. My magic moved with a predetermined freedom relative to my will, in that I could move it however I wanted as long as it was capable of it. I could control how dense the mist was and in how much of me was covered, and from what I'd seen of Lefiya's Fusillade Fallarica, the bolts could bend to some extent, but it was still a spray and pray kind of deal.

Aiz's, however, was just plain bullshit.

She could use it to reduce wind resistance, create shields of fast moving wind, extend the reach of her blade, even make a tornado to funnel crap into pelting me. That sort of flexibility was bordering—no, _was_ actually overpowered for a non-mage. Yes, I could drive monsters—and maybe people—insane if they touched my mist-flame thing, but I couldn't use it like a shield or for transportation or fuck all whatever I thought of. It was too free and flexible for the power it outputted, and no amount of grinding was ever gonna turn a fira spell into a super Saiyan mode barring a few very special instances.

Aiz slashed.

The wall of Violas was cleaved in two and a long gash etched out on the ceiling. What few monsters survived her opening act were diverted to the twins from the wake, Tione and Tiona both unleashing a flurry of attacks that destroyed the monsters where they passed. Tiona somehow kept swinging the goddamn thing around expertly enough as she spun and slashed, and seriously, how was she not hitting herself with that?!

 _Thomas, focus._

Spoil my fun, why don't cha.

 _I need to know what's happening. As accurately as possible._

Ugh. Fine.

Aiz and her unbreakable blade separated the monster's heads from their bodies with quick and short strokes, not a single millimeter out of place.

There weren't a lot of monsters a sharp and tough enough blade swung fast enough couldn't cleave through, and it showed with how well Aiz and the twins were chopping up the Violas. Narvi had a lot of trouble just fighting these things, but the jump in status between her and them showed through the ease at which the blonde sliced through the tough stems.

A Viola broke away from the initial mess and was promptly split by Finn's spear.

And still they kept coming, the should've been short journey to the crystal was marred by the horde that grew around us.

I chanced a look back, and where we'd passed, the flopping bodies left behind were pushed out by new Violas. Whether there were just that many or they regenerated was a question we'd find out later.

 _I'll get Freya's help._

Please and thank you, and please also give us an estimate once you get them.

 _Over and out. Good luck._

"Loki's gonna call for help to get Bete to come for us," I shouted over the mess of shrieks and death throes. "I'll get a time estimate later."

"Good!" Brynmor said.

"Don't get too complacent!" Finn said.

We outran the Violas behind us by a good few seconds, enough for them to stay just behind. But that was it, they were just behind us and we effectively pulled them all into the eventual dead end we all knew would come only too soon. These weren't a bunch of ants I could just throw myself at, these things had the potential about a level four, and not even all of us here could reliably destroy these things.

Riveria saw me look back. She did too. "My turn."

Riveria raised her staff as we ran.

Finn hopped over to just behind her and Narvi and Daffyd closed-up in front of her. Brynmor and Rakta moved to the space between Riveria and Finn, and Lefiya and Cadoc opened their rank to give her space.

"Go," Finn said.

A more intricate circle of light came to life beneath Riveria's feet, as the entire space filled with the presence of mana. " _The flame will soon be released_. _Creeping war, unavoidable destruction_."

My hairs stood on end just being so close to her.

The Violas behind shot forward in desperation but couldn't quite catch up, and the ones in front came harder at Aiz and the twins.

More fell from the ceiling.

Aiz and the twins renewed their assault, a frantic energy coming to life as they kept back the relentless horde coming from the front.

When one plant fell, two more took its place. A seemingly unending conga line of vibrant death marched to their deaths in the hopes of causing ours. Chunks of monster fell in droves, some bursting to ash, some not. We couldn't really tell which ones had already died besides what stopped moving.

"This is madness!" Brynmor said.

"Lili really wishes she just stayed in bed today!"

Our laments were just murmurs against the majesty of Riveria's might.

 _"The horn of battle sounds aloud, the cruelty of conflict will envelop all."_

Finn jumped into a spiral of Violas, their bodies intertwining into a twisted congregation that mirrored their forms. A hundred mouths came together, each one like a tooth to a great maw.

But he was equally just as absurd.

His spear twirled into a blur, and the mock of a monster was ground away into a shower of dust.

 _"Come, crimson flames, the ruthless inferno. You are the avatar of hellfire."_

The circle changed from a pristine white to a sinister red.

Trembles transmitted all throughout the cavern even as Brynmor expertly ran without stumbling or hesitation. Richly colored magic stones fell from the sky and littered the ground like the first hours of dew in the morning.

"Hang on," he said.

I clutched tight against him.

Riveria's voice echoed louder than the shrieking plants. _"Sweep completely, bring a close to the great war. Burn them through, Sword of Surtr - my name is Alf."_

She breezed through the last verses of her chant with a fluid grace that smoothed over the harsh terrain we trod over, not a single syllable or line unbroken as the magic swelled and swelled, the weight of it bordering nausea.

Riveria pointed her staff at the creatures behind us.

With a whisper of hell fire, she said, " _Rae Leavateinn_."

The space between us and the monsters behind exploded with bright fire near blindingly white and howled as it tore through the passage we passed and continued off to glass the rest of the way back. This was the spell she fired off how many times back in Rivira, the same one that caused pillars of fire to erupt so high up.

And seeing it up close, hell, Lefiya wasn't even near that.

Blackened husks, mere former shells that crumbled from the tremors were left behind, and the fleshy covering was all just carbon in the wake of Riveria's magic.

They weren't growing back.

"I think we're clear for escape!"

Nods came from those around me.

Finn took back the helm of the formation.

It took a minute or so of more Violas, until we reached the end of the cave system and the cavern opened into a dome-like room. The ceiling was so high up that only shadows could be seen. Inside, the crystal we sought was covered by a large plant that overshadowed the monumental structure that reached all the way up to the covered sky. The parallax between the target in question and the walls behind felt enough to give it a horizon like feeling.

 **I'd already heard the Dungeon grew the deeper one went, but this just plain didn't make any sense. Were we in another dimension or something? I didn't have that good of a mental map nor a sense for space but this much volume underground didn't translate at all to the sense of depth I'd had coming down here.**

 **Did the Dungeon even have proper real-world geometry? Magic?**

"That's not right," Cadoc said.

The creature was easily large enough to wrap itself around the gigantic crystal five times and its vines snaked about and traced lines along the air, their ends alight with some pink glow. Its stem was so thick that even from where we stood at about a couple hundred meters away, I could still make out the scales that made its body up.

The rest of it seemed to dissolve into the ground.

"I guess we know now what we'd been standing on all this time."

And it wasn't a comforting thought.

If the sight wasn't enough, what hit harder was the stench of some indescribable odor that pierced through the senses, like rotting flesh and literal shit.

But then the Violas stopped attacking.

"Lili's got a bad feeling about this."

The countless ones still by the ceilings, walls, and floor all converged where the gigantic plant was, a thousand mouths or more hissing in unison as they skittered and crawled over each other. They put their bodies up against its thick stem, covering it with layers of monster, the vibrant flowers contrasting against the lighter color.

Aiz and the twins fell back into formation.

The monsters stood their ground, as one pointed at our direction.

"They're protecting it," Finn said.

"Should we bombard them with magic?" Narvi said.

Lefiya readied her staff.

The spectacle of the horde coiled around the large one… like workers ready to lay their life down for the queen. It was a foreboding that had no clear outcomes, all chances just as ominous as the next.

Finn was biting his thumb again.

"A colony?" Rakta said.

"It seems like it," Brynmor said.

"This couldn't have been coincidence," Riveria said.

The ground shook.

"Lili did not like the sound of that."

Echoes rumbled from all around, the passage we came from, the pantry, the ceilings and the ground all the same. Dust came loose from the ceiling and yet the monsters stayed their course.

"They're… not protecting it," Aiz said.

"What?" Tiona brandished her weapon.

I swallowed hard. "I… think they were waiting."

"Well, that can't be good," Tione said.

The rumbling came louder—and like a bunch of idiots, we all looked back at the same time.

A glowing red orb was flying at us with a speed too fast.

"Jump!" someone said.

We all dove and slid down to the pantry proper.

And found the eye connected to a large body that took up the entire space of the passage we came from.

Its hulking humanoid form looked like a suit of armor covered in jagged green scales, its one glowing eye moved about in a dark slit. It looked like an organic zaku minus a gun and shield that even the size was just right for it.

It jumped up into the air.

"Lili was so much happier back when she was only in the first few floors!"

The zaku came hurtling down from above and landed faster than all of us could dodge.

It raised its fists up high.

"Look out!" Finn swept his staff and pushed the group to the side, the shock of it rocking my head inside my helmet.

Hammers the size of boulders crashed down.

The Dungeon floor collapsed in one go and we fell through open air with the rush of wind in my ears and an entourage of boulders and dust. Brynmor kept a firm hold on my person, and I could just make out some movements in the dust.

"Hang on, Tom!"

We broke through the cloud of debris, and through the tears and shock, I saw a gigantic waterfall hurtling white bubbling water down from some hole that should've connected to the twenty-fourth floor but made no sense where or how it even fell.

Finn had Lili in tow and they caught up with our falling forms.

"We fell through the twenty-fifth floor!" Finn said.

He threw out a rope at Rakta and Daffyd and pulled them in, Narvi, Lefiya, and Cadoc followed after.

Aiz and the twins and Riveria pushed off from the rocks falling with us, clearing our path of descent of debris as well as regrouping with the rest.

"Everyone accounted for," Tione said.

None of us were too badly hurt save for the gash along Cadoc's arm. He downed the contents of a potion and spat it at the wound.

It closed like—it closed with fucking magic. Right, I keep forgetting.

Three distinct layers of thick rock separated the space we were falling through, the first one littered with round pools filled with greenery at the sides, the second a swirl of rapids that twisted and turned and led up or down in a senseless flow, and the bottommost layer was a lake that the great waterfall fed into. Each layer was so far separated from each other that I could have placed Hubert and Hubert's forty storeys on each floor without their roofs touching the ceilings.

"At this rate we'll end up hitting the bottom of the waterfall and die!"

"That's the least of our concerns Tom!" Tione said. "It's been a month since I last heard the floor boss vanquished!"

"Ah, I hate the Amphisbaena the most!" Tiona said.

"That thing's back!" Daffyd pointed at the ceiling.

The zaku widened the hole we came from and dropped down together with a coating of Violas.

"More new species!" Lefiya said.

The humanoid fell through the air and tore off its arm.

"Well that's just dumb…"

No blood spurted out, and where the stump stretched out and came off, a new arm grew into place and the one it held in its hand shifted in mass and grew vines into a distinct axe-like shape.

We were still falling but seeing the damn thing do that just really took the cake.

"You were saying?" Rakta said with a flat stare.

Lili was just plain screaming.

"It just gets better and better!" Narvi said.

The Zaku reared back.

"Get ready!" Brynmor said.

And threw its axe at us.

"Dodge!" Finn swept his spear.

The sweep drove our group apart in time to dodge the gigantic weapon that flew straight into a just as gigantic pillar and cleaved through it like a carrot snapped in half.

Stone and dust exploded, the rest of it falling together with the portion of ceiling we fell with and hit the bottom of the basin. A sizeable plume of water shot upwards.

"We have no choice but to land at the twenty-seventh!" Riveria said.

"Aiz!" Finn said.

On cue, the blonde wrapped herself in wind and collected our scattered party, her gentle magic kept us together and the smaller debris away.

Another axe flew in, but she easily diverted us into a harmless arc.

Tiona passed her a bright blue potion. She downed it in an instant.

We neared the water.

Aiz raised her hands and directed it down with a mighty thrust, disturbing the surface with a jet pillar of wind that churned the clear waters into a boil.

We crashed into a cushion of bubbles and cold.

A rush of breathless milliseconds passed, and I soon found myself getting dragged by my collar over jagged and wet stones, coughing up whatever else I breathed in or swallowed as the distant rumbling and crashing played accompaniment to my doom.

I threw up the rest of what I'd swallowed until a big hand pulled me away and I found myself soaring through the air, the sky and ground upending one another before I crashed against the ground.

"Get up!" someone said.

"Run!"

I shakily got to my feet and was swept away before glass clinked against my teeth and a bitter liquid burned down my gut.

I opened my eyes to a scene of destruction, the zaku was standing atop the water shin deep and just a few tantalizing meters away but still very much gigantic against everything else. It towered over me like a titan, and good fucking god this must've been what it felt like to be Eren.

Tiona and Finn's weapons sparked against its jagged body, and its movements were unfettered by the depth nor the rocks that crashed against it.

It swung its axe much faster than its frame suggested.

Tiona and Finn kept it at bay while Riveria wove in and out with her magic circle following.

And just by the waterfall, Aiz was fighting against this just as gigantic Lagiarcus thing with another head for a tail while Lefiya stood on a rock with her circle out. It kept spitting out jets of pressurized water from both ends that tore through rock and air alike.

"Stupid Thomas." Tione threw away the discarded potion bottle.

"What?"

Then she threw me away—before she received a flying axe way larger than it had any right to be and diverted its course with her short swords into the wall behind her.

I flew with a lazy arc as my nuts receded so damn high up in my sack, my stomach probably met them along the way and that uneasy irritation like sensation tore a scream out from within.

"Ahhhhhhh!"

Finn deflected the axe with his spear, the monster's fist about as large as his entirety and yet he was fighting it all the same. Tione jumped into the air and diverted the axe strike meant for the captain with a kick to the side before running up its shaft and up the arm of the zaku to punch it in the face.

I rolled along the ground and stood up on shaking legs.

 _They're coming Tom! Gareth and the rest are on their way! Just hold out for thirty minutes!_

Near the lake was the rest of the party surrounded by an encirclement of fishmen, giant crabs, and these floating crystals that shot out lasers. Narvi broke away from the group and tore a path towards me against through the falling Violas. Brynmor quickly closed the ranks with Cadoc and Daffyd covering for a downed Rakta whom Lili was feeding the contents of a potion to.

Fuck.

A merman came running from the water, it towered over me and I tried to get my great sword, but it wasn't there anymore. I took out my pick to hit it away.

But it was too massive that my weapon bounced, and its spear thrust out.

The tip shot into my gut.

But the jacket stopped it dead, yet I emptied out whatever else was left of my stomach as I fell to my knees, all the air leaving me.

It raised its spear high.

 _Thomas!_

The merman's weapon crashed down and hit the arm I stretched out in time. The vambrace took most of the shock but all the way up to my shoulders rattled like a fork in a blender.

Narvi beheaded it. "Come on you idiot, now's not the time."

She pulled me up and carried me as I struggled to get some air into my lungs. There was pain, but not as much as I expected, I guessed the adrenaline was pumping too high for me to feel any right now.

The Violas were closing in on Daffyd and the others.

Riveria's magic circle reached a fever pitch before she flew towards the zaku's face and froze it on the spot into a popsicle worthy of sinking a ship.

Tione shot towards Daffyd's group and made short work of the Violas while the level fours dealt with the small fry.

Finn dashed into the zaku with his spear and slashed at it.

The ice cracked in chunks, the scales coming undone where the shell broke.

Its one big eye burned a fiery red.

Until more boulders crashed down from the ceiling bringing with it even more Violas.

I looked up and saw the giant plant from the twenty-fourth floor still wrapped around the crystal and falling together with a network of still more Violas.

The Lagiarcus thing spun in place and its body threw Aiz away.

But Lefiya's magic completed just in time as streaks of starlight pierced into and through the beast and filled it with smoking holes.

Narvi stopped running and waved the rest over to us instead. "Look out!"

Brynmor and the others looked up too. Daffyd took both Lili and Rakta into his arms and the three brothers ran together. Tiona shot back to the thick of the fight, beating back boulders as Aiz flew like an arrow through the Lagiarcus's chest.

The zaku broke free of the ice a few armor scales lighter, its chest exposing a gigantic magic stone core.

But the wound closed just as fast.

The giant plant landed in the water with a thick wad of Violas protecting it and they spread out with the force of the impact to scatter to the lake. On one hand, the Violas started eating the rest of the monsters on the twenty-seventh floor. And on the other hand, they were eating the monsters on the twenty-seventh floor which meant they were taking in the magic of the lesser creatures.

It didn't take a genius to know that was bad.

From the giant plant, its scales grew buds along the length of its body—that later bloomed into unmistakable crowns of purple. It was birthing more Violas even so far removed from the pantry—then again, it did bring the crystal together with it.

The zaku was again armed with an axe.

 _Really, a pun? Now?_

There's no such thing as a good time for a pun.

 _Exactly!_

And that's why a pun anytime is just as acceptable.

 _That's not how it works._

"Jeebus we're so fucked right now."

"Language!" Finn said with a smile. He swooped in together with Tione and the rest, Brynmor and his brothers also finally caught up.

"Aiz and Lefiya took out the lizard thing!" Tiona said with glee. "I really don't like it."

"Bad memories?"

"We don't talk about that anymore," Tione said.

The Violas started marching—slithering towards us together with the zaku.

"It's a battle of attrition then." Finn raised his spear high. "Rejoice, everyone, looks like it's time for an adventure!"

"I'm not too fond of our odds."

"Where the hell is Bete anyway?" Narvi downed a green potion.

Daffyd and Brynmor passed their blue potions to Lefiya who took the bottles down one after the other with deathly resolve, her face turning bluer with each gulp.

She topped them off. "Why can't they make better tasting potions?!"

Riveria drank a potion herself. "I can't agree more."

The giant plant stood or erected itself or whatever, the pantry crystal crumbled in its grasp. More Violas were being birthed by the second and the zaku started to quicken its pace.

"It's running," Cadoc said.

A groan sounded out, it was Rakta waking up. "What did I miss?" Her eyes trailed over to the sprinting giant. "Why couldn't it have been a dream?!"

"Hah!" Finn laughed. "Can't you all see now's the perfect time to exceed your limits?" He raised his thumb to his forehead. _"Magic spear, penetrate my forehead offering blood!"_

He was bathed in a blood red light that settled into a piercing red crest between his brows.

"Finn got magic?"

"Nah, he's had that for a while now," Tiona said.

"I… can still fight," Aiz said.

"I guess even as old as I am," Riveria said with a chuckle, "my blood can still boil."

"I can't lose to the lady!" Tione said.

"For my brothers!" the Ironhands roared.

"Stop raising death flags you idiots!"

"Oh, get off it, Tom," Narvi said. "Just say something heroic already."

"Lili is repenting for all the sins she has committed in this life and the last!"

"Wait no, that's not what I meant." Narvi groaned.

"Gareth would be so jealous of us right now!" Finn said with a feral smile so unlike the calm and collected guy I'd come to know. His eyes glowed red. "Look alive everyone, we've got an adventure on our hands!"

The clash opened with a flying axe that Finn caught with his bare hands.

"What?!"

"Adventure!" he said, as the not even five-foot hobbit—parrum, whatever, borne the weapon on his tiny shoulders.

And threw it into the lake, the handle landing by his feet.

"Is it just me or did it get so hot all of a sudden?" Tione fanned herself but her eyes were firmly glued to Finn's ass.

Tiona groaned.

Finn picked up the axe again.

"Ready everyone?" He reared one leg back as the gigantic weapon took to the air.

"To finally telling Raul I like him!" Rakta shouted out.

"Rakta liked Raul?!" Tiona said.

"Focus!" Riveria snapped.

"…adventure." Aiz said with a small smile.

I wasn't about to fall here. Not like this. I let my magic swell to as much as I could, all pretense of caution and staying out of the way gone with the wind as only these guys were left. There wasn't any point to keeping my magic hidden away anymore, not with all the other monsters here already getting eaten. The weight of my weapons in my hands was reassuring. They anchored me into the now that was unfolding before my eyes.

I, Thomas, a man of the modern age of safety and no more unknown corners, was about to embark on something I never even dreamed of doing, to venture into the unknown with my life on the line.

Finn opened the fight with his giant axe going sideways and took out a great swathe of Violas with the move. While our two mages began their chants.

The plan—if it was even one—was to keep the horde and the zaku back until they finished their chants. It was a tactic as old as time and it stayed true even today: protect the artillery.

Aiz shot towards the horde like a bullet and cut through their ranks on her own.

Tione and Tiona hung back to let the Sword Princess do what she did best. The level fives and up took the front most position while I and Lili stood just in front of the mages. Should things come to it, Riveria was to run to the left and continue her chant while I was to run to the right with my magic saturated to as high as I could to confuse the Violas.

Just one spell.

Just one grand spell was what we needed.

Lili held onto her small sword and shield with shaking hands and a smile just like Finn's. As crazy as he sounded then, it still had the intended effect.

I felt brave enough to face whatever came.

Aiz rejoined the front once the tide of Violas arrived, and as one they cut down the monsters. Aiz, Tione, and Tiona maintained the front supported by Narvi and the others while Finn engaged the zaku by himself.

Cadoc was together with Lili and I, and I was to distract any monsters from the floor—besides the Violas—for him to take out in case there were too many.

The space between our ranks sometimes cracked to reveal a giant crab, merman, snake, there was even a mosquito that one time, and more of those floating crystals. All of them I set on fire with my black flames before Cadoc would split them in half with his sword.

Urchin things, turtles, harpies also eventually joined the ranks of those I'd burned and slowly but surely the bodies piled up. Lili was a dear enough to move them away where Cadoc and I prevented anything from reaching the mages.

The drone of battle went on for what felt like hours if not days.

Until our two cannons announced their preparations.

Riveria unleashed a great tornado that was as tall as the zaku which Aiz rode with her own wind and steered through the monsters ranks. Lefiya, on the other hand, unleashed Riveria's own fire magic and blasted the way forwards and towards the giant plant with fire. The tornado caught the blast and became a firestorm after Aiz left it to keep churning towards the large target.

The ranks of Violas thinned with the pass of the extreme display of magic and the firestorm eventually reached the giant plant.

Fire and wind churned for how many seconds until the mana sustaining them was fully consumed revealing a blackened silhouette, that shook off the shell of carbon and renewed its advance. It didn't die, but it stopped the mother plant thing from birthing more monsters.

Lefiya and Riveria began chanting again.

Finn's spear eventually broke.

Tiona threw her weapon to him.

Tione shared one of hers with her sister.

Aiz's wind blew less and less.

The battle line shrunk with each passing minute.

The ground of the twenty-seventh floor glittered like a jeweled road.

I couldn't feel my arms and legs anymore.

Rocks fell.

I chanced a look up and saw nothing—until the zaku thing was thrown off its feet from the hip.

The giant plant turned back, before it twitched and jerked one side to another.

Violas were torn from their legs—or was it roots in a line that quickly approached our group.

The vanguard tightened the line.

Then the zaku lost a leg and fell to its knees as it regenerated the lost limb fast enough to catch itself.

And for the first time, the giant plant screamed a horrible wail.

Lili covered her ears.

The tornado reappeared, followed by Lefiya's fire. It was the second coming of the conflagration.

And from it shot plumes of flame in different directions.

"Finally!" Narvi said.

A portion of the Violas turned tail and retreated to converge on the giant plant, while the zaku kept losing arm and leg one after the other in alternating fashion, until its back finally sank to the water.

A giant of a man towered over Finn and pierced through the thing's chest with a sword.

The zaku exploded into dust.

#

We lived to fight another day.

The brutal melee ended with the arrival of Gareth and the rest of our reinforcements, Ottar and the Gulliver brothers included. With their help, the zaku, Violas, and giant plant monsters were taken down shortly after with no one too deeply hurt.

After the danger had passed, we gave three large bags of the richly colored stones to Ottar as a cut of the loot while we stayed with the rest of the Loki familia reinforcements to collect everything we could. It was a festival of magic stones and the drops we obtained from the monsters of the twenty-seventh floor down, and thankfully the Freya familia wasn't feeling too greedy.

By the end of it all, we filled five large bags with the fist sized stones. Regardless of what purpose they might have, the guild was sure to pay a hefty sum for them.

Not to mention the report we'd be giving about the zaku and the giant plant. That was a conversation I was thankfully not gonna be part of.

Lili and I walked the way back to the manor on our own legs just like everyone else. I was part of the familia, and finally I'd done something I could say truly embodied what it meant to be part of the team.

I fought and bled just as they did, though less of the latter.

Loki herself escorted us to the Dian Cecht familia home to get our wounds checked out. The turnover of the stones could wait later. Besides some minor dehydration, a few cracked bones here and there, and some minor internal bleeding, I'd gotten off relatively scot free.

Rakta had lost quite a bit of blood and Brynmor was running on fumes and a compound arm fracture. Cadoc had a wound to the gut that was hastily sealed with a high potion that had to be reopened so Airmid could properly suture the wounds. Daffyd almost lost a leg to a Viola but kept on fighting with sheer grit. Riveria and Lefiya were both force fed potions just to keep them going, and thankfully they weren't too badly hurt thanks to our efforts.

Tiona and Tione fought at the helm of the battle, and they were pretty alright as well. Aiz was suffering from a deficiency of mana just like the two mages, but besides that, she was practically unharmed.

Finn though took a bit more work to properly heal the muscles and ligaments he tore after lifting that axe multiple times. During the fight with the zaku—which Loki had taken to calling the Vizored because of its armor-like structures, Finn's catching and throwing of the giant axes had him push himself too hard multiple times just to protect us. By the fight's end, our courageous captain was bleeding through his skin and places and covered everywhere in bruises from the internal hemorrhaging.

Good thing we got him here in time, was what Dian Cecht said. After our hospital run, and everyone was deemed fit enough not to kill themselves just walking back to the home, the elderly god finally released us with a hefty bill.

"Just another notch on the tab," Loki said.

But the number of zeros on it didn't lose to one of the durandals Finn commissioned for the coming expedition.

Back at the house, Gareth came back with a not so conventional haul of goodies. He had five books with him, grimoires he called them, along with a very substantial five hundred million in cash, a unicorn horn, some black fang, and some rings I figured just had to be magical in nature.

Gareth explained Fels offered the reward in exchange for the stones, and since the money was so good, he couldn't say no. Though it did come with another letter that asked for an investigation of the pantries of each floor all the way down to the thirtieth. That one, we knew better than to make a pass at with a casual party.

Our interests seemed to be aligned for the time being and he wasn't about to look a gift box under the lid, according to him.

We had a party that night to celebrate our triumphant return, and the drinking lasted well until the sun came up with me in the thick of it. Rakta finally came clean with her feelings and Raul was left a stuttering mess after the bunny lady's heartfelt confession. The rest of the familia though ended up exchanging coins on the spot as bets and winnings were revealed on who would say what and what would happen.

Anger was a very understandable response, but Rakta only got pissed at the ones who bet against the fulfillment of her love. Raul though, was only too dazed to react. Bete was strung up again like a piñata for calling Lili a pathetic excuse for coming down so deep when she was so weak, but the feisty little lady wasn't gonna take that lying down, so she stomped on his foot for all the good it did. Finn made sure the gesture stuck to memory.

As the sun rose on my half-naked form atop a picnic table and covered in fruit slices, I guess today was the first time I properly took a look at the people around me. Tione was hugging Lili so tight the girl seemed to be having nightmares in her sleep while Lefiya was slung over one of the potted plants. Tiona was sprawled on the floor along with Claire, Alicia, Cruz, and Narvi, and the Ironhand brothers were all asleep hugging each other.

It was a scene of chaos and stupidity, and as loathe as I was to call it what I felt it before, I was a bit more inured to the fact now.

I was home.

#

Level 1

Strength = F 374 - D 598

Endurance = E 470 - B 710

Dexterity = D 561 - B 785

Agility = F 347 - D 577

Magic = B 780 - SS 1030

Madness Spectrum = I

Tranquil Intervention = I

World Walker = I

Fated Actor = I

Magic

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Madness"

Saudade = An area of effect drain spell that takes the magic and life force contained in all within range and transfers it to the user. Targets stronger than the user are able to resist having their magic and life stolen. Has a five-meter radius, and a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Taken from the peace of home / I now stand beyond the veil / The aberrant demands reparation"

Skill

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

Enabler = Increases magic by an exceptional amount in a pinch and causes magic damage to siphon life force.

Mania = Increases endurance the longer one stays in battle and gradually wears off after.

Lævateinn = Adds a fire element to all attack magics.

Vindicta = Momentarily increases strength when retaliating against an attacker, the higher the damage received, the stronger the effect.

#

Just like Finn said, we went on an adventure, and the results showed for it. Rakta, Narvi, Daffyd, Cadoc and Lefiya levelled up, three new level fives and two new level fours.

Which meant another party later tonight—which was received with mixed feelings. There was the hardcore faction that included Riine of all people who were all gung ho for it, and the more conservative faction, read as the ones who go through shitty hangovers, who weren't too happy with the prospect of spending two days in a row suffering through hell. They already did it once in the few days I'd been here, so it wasn't that compelling of an argument.

I was of neither, since I didn't and don't drink enough to pass out. Okay, so the fruit slices I didn't know how they got on me, but at least I wasn't the one stripped down by the garden. That was Tiona. Though I only found out from secondhand sources.

Loki made the announcement during lunch time after we all got some proper rest and had our statuses updated. I didn't level up though, but the jump in my basic abilities was enough to make Bete laugh like an idiot and Finn to sigh in exasperation.

We stood in a semi-circle just like the last time in Finn's study with three new joiners.

Lefiya just stared at the number on the lowest part of my back. "H-how?!" she said. "I didn't even know stats could exceed S?!"

"The more you know, eh?"

"No, Tom, you're just bullshit." Finn nodded.

"I'm just amazed I'm a high executive now." Rakta was blushing up to her ears.

"You earned it." Gareth sighed. "Must've been an interesting ride, no?"

"It was," Narvi said with a blank look. She looked at the paper in her hands. "Does this mean I'm forced to spend more time with Thomas?"

Gareth put on an angelic smile. "I can finally pass that responsibility over to you."

Aiz though was pouting as she looked at the three new additions to their—our ranks.

"The lizard… wasn't enough," she said with a determined expression. She looked at Finn. "Udaeus."

Finn pursed his lips. "Well, you can… probably."

"Alone," Aiz said.

All eyes went to the captain.

"Really should've seen that one coming."

"Shush you," Narvi said.

"But that's my line!" Loki added.

"So noisy," Bete said.

"Lili has a skill now!" The tiny girl buzzed on her feet.

Daffyd shook Gareth's hand with a firm shake. "Nice to finally have a kinsman here," Gareth said. He shot a sly look at Finn who grinned back.

"Lefiya won't take long now," Riveria said with a raised brow. "Perhaps I should have her come with Thomas more."

"Don't you think that would only traumatize her?" Narvi said.

"She'll get used to it," Rakta said. "Eventually."

Loki clapped her hands. Everyone went silent. "Wow, this is just gonna keep on getting more and more hard to facilitate…"

"But it's a good problem!"

"Aye," the two dwarves said. They looked at each other before laughing.

"Okay people," Loki said. "Settle down. Alright, first order of business, Fels."

"I think he's connected to the guild!"

"I agree," Finn said.

"I just think he's creepy," Daffyd added.

"Thomas?" Loki gestured to me.

"That guy offered us cold hard cash and a few more in reward, which means they have a significant backing in terms of capital wealth. Here in Orario, we only have a few familias capable of that much excess, our familia included, we'd still need a butt ton of time to accumulate that wealth much less commission the crafting of these grimoire things you told me about."

"Could still be an independent party?" Tione said.

"I don't think so," Riveria said. "I agree with Thomas on this. This Fels person gave us three hundred for a failed mission, and now this. And we've yet to receive any missives from the Guild too…"

"Which means they're most likely aware we're currently dealing with something ourselves… aye, I see now," Gareth said.

"Missions?"

"I keep forgetting you've been here just a week and change," Loki said. "The guild gives out missions to familias for certain items or to do investigations and whatnot, sometimes subjugations for strong monsters or even to resolve some… international conflicts."

"This is that Ares character, right?"

"Did he just take a god's name in vain?" Narvi had a frown on.

"Thomas seems unaffected by the gods," Finn said. "It's rather unnerving."

"He flirts with Loki," Tione said. "What gets weirder than that?"

Nods came all around while Loki massaged her temples.

I shrugged. "Actually, I suspected the guild purely because of how people keep track of finances here in Orario. That much money changing hands is one thing, but for it to suddenly appear in someone's reports without the guild flagging it is the biggest admittance I can think of."

"Huh," Rakta said, "that… made a lot of sense." She turned to Narvi. "Do I have a fever or something?"

Loki waved her arms. "Is everyone in agreement with that conclusion?" No one spoke out. "No takers?"

"I agree," Riveria said, followed by some more affirmatives from the others.

"Next order of business then, the preparations for the expedition." She pointed at Finn. "Go."

"We're in a much better position now with the new level fives, and with this unexpected inflow, we've at least secured some funds now for after the expedition. We won't pay off the commissions yet with this and instead wait for the income from the expedition to see how we'll fare," Finn said.

"Aye," Gareth added. "Tsubaki's coming along nicely with our orders and the stocks for the backups are also slowly getting up to par, by the time the expedition starts, we should be back in working order."

"Good, good," Loki said. "Anyone else want to add?"

I raised my hand. "Is it smart to raise an expedition when we've seen these new types of monsters come along? Those Vizoreds and that giant plant—"

"Viscum," Loki supplied.

"How'd you even come up with that?"

"It's my thing."

"Do they do this a lot?" Narvi said.

"Too much," Tione said.

"Right, whatever. We'd be getting into too many unknowns and be so deep, it doesn't seem like a smart move to stick to the schedule."

"You're not wrong," Gareth said. "But that doesn't mean that we should stop everything just because of the risk."

"We're already in the business of it anyway," Riveria said. "What's a new monster or two going to change?"

"Fair enough, but we've had four new species discovered already in a span of a few days."

"And I bet we'll find more on our way down," Finn said. "Rather exciting, isn't it?"

The level sixes smiled.

"That's not very comforting."

"Adventure!" Tiona said.

"Okay!" Loki pumped her fist in the air. "Last one on the agenda, Thomas already brought it up, its about the new monsters. I'm already aware of what Thomas has been sharing—minus the commentary—but I still want to hear it from you. Gareth, the Viscum, and Finn, the Vizored."

Finn went first. "Fighting the Vizored was like fighting a stronger goliath covered in armor, it could regenerate its limbs at an alarming rate, and it could tear its arms off to create an axe. The armor was hard enough to make my weapon bounce against it, and it took Ottar and his absurd strength just to pierce through its chest. His sword broke right after."

Loki steepled her fingers. "Any plans on taking it down?"

"Magic was the most effective," Riveria added. "A quick barrage of spells would be the best way to take care of it."

"Assuming there was only one."

Everyone nodded at that.

Loki pointed at Gareth. "And the Viscum?"

"Aye, it was tough as adamantium that," the dwarf said. "I couldn't cut through it with my axe deep enough to go through, but I figure I got lucky and hit it hard enough to shatter its stone somehow."

"It could also spread out its roots or whatever and creep over the Dungeon stone to expand its birthing area."

"Was that what we were standing on in the passage?" Narvi said.

"Seemed to be," Tiona added.

"The Violas grow along its surface, but I think the Viscum needed a source of energy or whatever to fuel the process since it was attached to the pantry crystal. That probably means we could at worst expect one of those in every pantry."

"Unlikely," Finn said. "The amount we saw in the twenty-fourth floor exceeded the population we defeated in Rivira by a whole lot. Rivira would've been the amount in the passage alone, not including the ones we fought in the cavern and the new ones birthed by the Viscum in the twenty-seventh. I think this solidifies my theory that there's a tamer involved."

"It makes sense to me," Loki said. "The ones in the sewer Bete and I found was about five of those?"

Bete nodded.

"And then there was only one during the Feria," Tiona said.

"These numbers on how we encountered them," Finn said, "I think we're dealing with multiple tamers at least. One group responsible for the sewers, and another for Rivira and connected with the mission Fels originally wanted done."

That made a lot of sense.

"Anyone?"

"Any news from Freya?"

Loki shook her head. "I received a letter earlier saying they'd already checked some of the pantries from the upper levels, but none like the ones you guy found. We'll probably need to look into the others."

Which meant deeper. "Perhaps there was a minimum size for the Viscum to properly birth monsters?"

"It seems likely," Finn said.

No one else raised anything after that.

"Orders on going out of the manor don't change," Loki said, "everyone is to always have some level fours at least with them, capisce?"

We all nodded.

"Alright, run along now kiddies!"

#

Once everyone had left, I stayed behind to get Loki all alone.

Call it jealousy or whatever, but I just couldn't quite swallow it. I knew I'd earned that level yesterday, and yet nothing. I'd almost died, yet I fought just as much as Cadoc did. And my stats even grew so much! I didn't do anything wrong at all.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself." She went out of her room and sat by the balcony. "Something on your mind?"

I sat beside her and watched the courtyard brimming with life. People were playing by the grass—if playing meant crawling in agony or just lying face up with blank stares. Three things surfaced, my magic, my level, and what to do about it. The easiest one seemed the best place to start. "Yeah, how did Aiz get such powerful magic?"

"She's special," she said with a smile. "A bit like you."

"But she's not from another world, right?" Not with how… strange she was.

She tilted her head. "What brought this line of questioning up?"

That was a fair question. "You know everything about me, Loki. This shouldn't come as a surprise."

"Actually, it is."

I narrowed my eyes at her but that cute smile kinda made it harder to stay… unnerved. I'd lost steam. "Her magic is too free."

"And?"

"And she doesn't tire from using it."

"Heh, that's true." She raised a brow. "Why does it bother you?"

"I want to know how she got it, because maybe I could too. A higher magic stat would make it more likely for me to develop stronger magic, right?" She nodded. "And a better spell would allow me to grind it faster."

"You're already plenty strong Tom," Loki said. "Your skills and abilities alone, not to mention your magic. It's only been a few days."

I sighed. "It doesn't feel like a few days."

"I know, it shows on your face," she said.

"What's up with my face?"

"You look like shit."

"If any, that's an insult to your tastes."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "I'll bite you."

"Err, what's the safe word?"

Loki chuckled. "You know you don't have to rush too much Tom."

"One part of me gets that, but another wants to keep going anyway."

"You sound exactly like Aiz, you know that?" She looked to the side. "Except her I don't share part of my mind with, really, for all the time we spend in each other's heads, you still surprise me."

"In a good way?"

A blank stare was all the reply I got. "You have a lot of talent with confusing yourself, and its to the point I can't really tell what's driving you anymore. I can see what appears on the surface, that you fear not being albe to come back, or that you enjoy your time here, or that even if you do come back it might be too late, or that Freya freaks you out, or how much you wanna maybe try doing… something…"

"Yeah, no need to mention that part."

"What I mean is, what exactly is it that you want?"

"Home?"

"You're not too sure yourself." She pursed her lips. "You're confused with what to prioritize and the guilt you feel at enjoying your time here's getting more in the way than you think."

"Is that why I didn't level up?"

"I don't know, but I feel you'd be the better one to answer that question." Loki held my cheek. "Maybe you just need to stop and take a good long look before you go down the dungeon again?" She gestured at the rest of the familia. "Get to know the others, see who they are, see what they want. Maybe that'd help you settle?"

"Perhaps…"

"Try."

"I'm not exactly the most social person."

"If you can talk to Freya with a straight face, you can talk to anyone." She stared off into the distance. "Trust me on that."

"Or you know, maybe I could take some time meditating?"

"Do you want to get stuck babysitting Bete?" Loki tsked. "Because this is how you get stuck babysitting Bete."

"I heard that!" said someone from the first floor.

"Come on Tom," Loki said. "How bad could it be?"

"It _always_ goes bad when someone says that."

"Ah," Loki said. "Why don't you go shopping for a new weapon?"

"Dude, retail therapy? Really?"

"The only people who say money can't buy happiness clearly don't know where to shop."

"Wow, this from a god…"

"Also, Freya wants to call in a favor," Loki said with a shrug.

"Oh god, what do we need to do?"

Loki took out a pale green book, it read _Modern Magic even a Goblin Could Understand_ on the cover. "We were supposed to drop this off at the Hostess for someone to pick up later."

"Why go through all the trouble? Surely she could just have her people do it for her, right?"

"Are you seriously saying no to owing Freya one less with a simple task like this?"

"Hmm, good point." I took the book and was a tad curious on the contents.

Loki slammed the book closed in my hands. "Don't read it."

"Dude, the worst I could end up reading is some crack fic about Ganesha and… I don't know, Ottar?"

Loki cringed. "Don't ever say that again. Ever. And no, this is a grimoire, so no reading else we'll end up owing my sister like I don't know, upwards of a hundred or two million."

"Dude. They want me to leave this in a goddamn bar? Who the hell am I leaving it for anyway?"

Loki raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously, I'm drawing a blank here."

"Anyone ever tell you you ask too many questions?"

"There was that one time when Laura and I were still dating and—"

Loki held a hand up to my lips all red. "Oookay, no need to go there."

#

Really, this had bad idea written all over it. And I was compelled by honor and fear of crazy homicidal—though unproven on Laura's case—women. Okay, I had this. Just walk in, look like I had every goddamn right to be there. And leave this shit forsaken book for Freya's god knows what scheme. Really, how could anything go wrong.

"Lili didn't know Thomas's inner monologues were so… colorful."

"Thomas… language."

"Remind me again why I'm here?" Bete said. Unfortunately, Loki sicced him on my ass anyway.

"Could we get any more suspicious?" Narvi said.

"It would be prudent to just get it over with, Thomas," Lili said.

The book in my hand felt like a wad of cash dipped in gasoline and could go off any second in a grand freak accident of spontaneous combustion.

"Lili would also like to point out that talking out loud like this is only making us more conspicuous."

Bete kicked me into the bar.

I ended up crashing into this catgirl—but she handed my butt to me with a quick flourish instead. "Dear customer, nya, we're not that kind of establishment, nya."

"Err, sorry, I thought I entered an art gallery."

She looked me up and down before smirking. "Nya, nice try."

The rest of the group walked in.

"Really? Art gallery?" Lili said. She took a seat at a free table for four.

"That was horrible, Tom." Narvi gave me a pat on the back. "Too high standards only end up hurting you in the end."

One of the waitresses ooh'ed.

Bete took his seat and ordered a round of ales.

"We were just drinking last night?" Lili said.

"What's your point?" Bete said.

It was too early for a proper dinner so we only had some appetizers and snacks. I set the grimoire by my feet and we basically just made merry talking crap about that last disaster of a trip down the dungeon. Sure, we were sorta on a mission right now, but it didn't mean we'd be wasting time. We were here to control what information entered the populace as well as maybe monitor what got added to the grape vine eventually.

There were grains of truth mixed in to the crap we spouted, and if the rumors came back to us with them edited out then we at the very least knew someone was monitoring the situation in Orario. Which was either Fels, and by speculation the guild, or some other party we were yet to rat out.

We left a big tip behind and I made sure to kick the grimoire under the table a bit further in to drive the point home.

I also passed by Tsubaki's place with Narvi to commission another great sword like the one I'd lost, and she didn't mind squeezing another one in.

The day ended with another party that didn't lose out in intensity to the one just last night and again Bete got drunk.

I was beginning to think he enjoyed getting strung up like that… maybe a sub or something.

There was singing and dancing and then Loki and the other girls egged Rakta on to make out with Raul but the latter passed out drunk before anything proper could happen. Aiz, for once, had taken some fruit punch, and Lili one way or another ended up chugging tankards together with Lefiya.

Tione, as usual, was still trying to get into Finn's pants.

And thankfully Tiona hadn't lost her clothes yet, though the Ironhand brothers and Gareth and the rest of the dwarves were really singing up a storm.

I knew better than to fall for the same damned trick.

Loki passed me a drink.

I rolled my eyes.

#

I woke up buried up to my neck in the garden the following day.


	11. Vol 1 Chapter 10

**Volume 1**

 **Chapter 10**

Normal people usually shied away from repeating actions that previously led to a near death experience, turns out adventurers made a habit of going back for more despite that. These people practically lived and breathed the adage what didn't kill you, you ought to grind away at and get as much exilia as you could from. Aiz wanted to drag me all the way down to the thirty-seventh floor just so I could see her kick some giant skeleton guy's bony ass, not to give me any experience at seeing such a monster, but more to serve like a charm for boosted experience points or something. Seeing how I only slowed them down though, Finn had me sit it out instead.

So, there they went, down to god knows where all just so Aiz could see whether she was badass enough to solo a _suitable_ floor boss for real. With Finn's blessing. Sorta.

And me, well, I had something to take care of.

At least Tiona dug me out of the ground before they left.

We were sitting around the living room with a few others just lounging about before everyone else went down the Dungeon. It was the so-called after-breakfast-lull where people were too lazy and too full to not make fools of themselves while running for their lives. Granted that last one really only applied to my level one ass. Everyone else preferred the less risky route of taking baby steps, not like those grand leaps of faith and logic Gareth so lovingly never forgot to remind me about.

"Tom," Loki said, "I'm not all that willing to spend a grimoire on you." She pursed her lips and hugged the books tighter against her chest.

"But you gave Lili one!"

The girl in question gave me the stink eye.

"Lili gets a free pass since she's a fine loli." Loki nodded sagely.

"What's a loli?" Lili wasn't smiling.

"Don't mind what she said." I stared at my goddess. "I might finally get some ranged magic for once!"

"That won't solve your blue balls, Tom." Loki clicked her tongue. "If any, you need to solve your own problems first."

"What problems? I don't have any problems."

Rakta, Narvi, Raul, Alicia, Lili, okay a whole bunch of people just stared. Bete too. I looked back at him. "What's _your_ deal?"

"What are you yammering about? We've never made any deals in the first place, idiot."

Loki shook her head. "You're really just making yourself suffer."

"Was that about the language thing or the magic thing?"

"Both." Loki took a blue bound book covered in fine suede. "You already have three slots, Tom. You'll just end up wasting one of these fine and expensive pieces on a dud." She tossed the book to Narvi. "Congratulations! You get a spell!" She tossed a shiny grey one to Daffyd. "You get a spell." Then she picked out a scaly mustard yellow one. "And you, Rakta, also get a spell!"

The three lucky pricks all had open mouths as they held the books with reverence.

"One last book."

"And really, I like you a lot Tom." Some of the girls whistled at that. Loki sighed. "But you've already got a plenty strong spell."

"I do?"

"Screaming minotaurs," Lili supplied.

"Surviving a one-on-one with an infant dragon with low stats," Rakta added.

"Screaming. Minotaurs." Narvi repeated. "The only other time that happened wasn't even two weeks ago when Tione went on a rampage after our expedition."

"There's a precedent, it can't be that uncommon."

"Yes, by level fives who did that through a sheer difference in power," Narvi said.

"I used magic, there's a difference."

The people around me rolled their eyes.

"Okay, but wouldn't it make more sense to get me a ranged spell so I don't have to put myself in harm's way?"

Loki's face puckered up. "Tom, your skills more than speak for themselves."

"Yeah but that's because I didn't have a choice."

"No, Tom," Loki said, "you _always_ had a choice. You could've chosen to wield a spear like Finn does or explored the possibility of charging arrows with your magic, hell, I kind of expected you to ask about magic guns!" She threw her arms up.

"What's a gun?" Lili asked.

"And yet you didn't do that," Loki continued, "and you even went out of your way to get weapons custom made for you to be more effective at what you did."

"It never occurred to me that I'd end up without any ranged magics."

"And instead of trying to develop towards that direction by preparing for it, you instead embraced the up close and personal route."

"Don't you mean Gareth's stuff made me develop that way?"

"No," Loki said. "That was all you. You could've chosen a hit and run style, strike and evade, you know. Sting like a butterfly?" She pointed at me. "But no, you just went ahead and started wrestling things and getting all bloody and crap."

"Yeah Tom," Rakta said. "No one in their right mind would willingly bathe in monster blood just to make their Dungeon raiding faster and last longer."

"I feel so attacked right now."

"It's called an intervention," Loki said. "I even prepared a tarp for it." She pointed towards the kitchen.

Raul and Cruz went out wielding two spears, a banner tied to either end with the word intervention written on it in big red letters. Riine and Alicia pulled against the cones in their hands and out came confetti and smoke with a pop. Loki blew on a party horn that unrolled up to my face.

"Dude."

"The least you can do is look remorseful," Loki said. She leaned in closer. "Come on, a little frown at least?"

"No dice."

Raul and Cruz put the crap away and in came Arcs with a broomstick and dust pan and cleaned up the mess left behind. They cleared it all as fast as Loki pulled the stunt out of nowhere, and the practiced movements implied they'd done this at least a few times before. Then again, it was Loki. So, yeah.

I scratched my cheek. "Okay, fine, so _what_ if I was good at hitting back."

"That's just the thing." Loki was fiddling with the bloody red book in hand. "You don't even bother dodging. That won't work anymore once you go lower, and that merman was just the start."

Memories of my gut rising to my stomach as my vision blurred came to mind, my knees buckling as my strength left. It was the first time I was ever brought down low. And it wasn't pretty. It was mortifying to feel so helpless, and now that I could look back at it, all I could feel from the fact was a gnawing rage at how helpless I was. How the fuck was I supposed to earn godhood from being this… weak? And okay, I was growing fast, but even this still felt too slow. Aiz and the others wouldn't even be bothered by a merman stabbing them assuming it even could, and here I was crumpling from a hit from some nameless mob.

Loki snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Tom?"

The ringing in my ears subsided, my jaw relaxing in place. "Mmm?"

"You kinda left me there for a second."

"Err, sorry." I took a deep breath.

"Were you listening?"

"Yeah, and I already know my current style wasn't gonna cut it anymore once I started running away from those Violas." I ran because I couldn't beat them as I was, went without saying. I paced towards the window.

"I couldn't beat them either," Narvi said with a frown.

"It doesn't make me any less weaker." The day had just started and yet I was already so tired.

"And what does that make me?" Narvi said.

I turned back to look her in the eyes. "That's besides the point."

"No, it isn't, Tom," Loki said. "It's the exact same point. You don't get to hold yourself to a higher standard just because. Everyone started where you are, minus a few perks. But it's all the same in the end."

I turned away. "And yet we both know that's not true."

"You're not wrong," Loki said, "but you're not right either."

"So, should I pick up a spear now?" A tinny din filled my ears. "There's no difference between a blade with a handle and a blade on a stick, in the end, its all about how effective you are at using it." Was doing all this really leading me towards what I needed to do? What was it that I really needed to do to get what I wanted anyway? To get stronger and level up wasn't even the real crux of what I needed to solve.

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Loki said. "Whatever happened to having to fight from range?"

"It's the results that matter in the end." I needed to dive in the Dungeon to get stronger, and in turn to get better magic, or to reach godhood. But, was that what I really needed to do? Wasn't looking for the how I got here in the first place the thing I should've been looking for from the start?

"No, Tom, it's all about coming back in one piece." Loki stared straight into my soul.

We shared so much and still so little really came through. I was seeing into her more and more with each passing day, the doubts and uncertainties, and even then underneath it all there was this unshakeable current of something, hope? Pride? It gave her something alien to me, determination maybe? Optimism?

All I had to show for the past few days was a few spells and a few nice numbers, but none really pointed me any closer to my goals. Was I really having so much fun that I forgot what it is that drove me to dive in the first place?

"Tom?" Loki said.

"I… need to clear my head."

"Don't dive alone," Loki said, "alright?"

Narvi, Rakta, and Lili all looked at me as I went out the manor, the others following me as I ventured out into the city's streets.

#

The others stopped tailing me when I promised I wouldn't go down the Dungeon.

Loki told me to take a step back and take in the scenery, so here I was at the twenty-fifth floor of the tower overlooking the city from high enough. The main streets divided the circular city into eight slices with the cardinal directions marked as North, South, East, and West Main streets, and their secondary directions following the normal schemes, Northeast Main, Southwest Main, to name a few. The business district was in South Main, while our home was on the end of North Main.

I saw the restaurant we first went to was at the end of Southwest Main where we met Freya and Ottar.

The window was warm against my fingertips, and the cold sweat down my back contrasted against the bright morning. Knowing the gods to exist and what we'd thought of so far, it stood to reason that someone or something was hoping to use me in whatever plan they had in store. The clues were already there, my status and the unexpected blessings, the connection to Loki, the strange happenings down by the fiftieth floor, and now these attacks and unexpected developments in the otherwise static Dungeon. Things were changing and if the recent events were anything to go by, none of it was good.

I was so preoccupied with asking how to get home despite all the happenings that I'd forgotten to ask why I got here in the first place. We were yet to discover any legends or stories of people coming from elsewhere, but we already had a prime example right here: me. From what I knew, I just suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the street, like I just slipped in time and space. There were no portals or anything, one second I was in Tulley, and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of Orario's streets. Perhaps returning to where I ended up in might reveal some clue?

On second thought, Loki didn't seem to know much about what happened but neither did anyone in the familia seem to be too surprised… which should've struck me strange. There ought to have been more panicking, and yet all I got was some suspicions barring the endorsement of Loki. Maybe that tipped the scale? Then again, Finn believed in a goddess other than the gods. And if what little we'd talked about was anything to go by, he hadn't lost that faith either.

Which means, the gods weren't as absolute with their powers sealed. Which Loki hadn't really hidden, just never fully explained. Everything I'd thought of here she'd see later once I got my status updated, but so what? These were my feelings.

Also, they'd repeatedly mentioned I had a way of denying the gods? Did that mean a compulsion or an effect of their power? Too many questions needed answers and an experiment was in order, but perhaps taking it on alone wouldn't be too smart.

The polished floor reflected a face I almost didn't recognize. I sighed. Loki wasn't wrong with the things she said, and it simply didn't occur to me at the time to factor those in. A spear! Of all things I could've missed, why didn't I try to see what else my magic could engulf? Shooting arrows charged with Despair would be an effective workaround to my problem with range, and yet why didn't I stop to think things through first? I was confused, I guess? Too Eager too.

Frustration, annoyance, I wanted to go back into the Dungeon and vent.

Looking at it now, I'd been doing just that all this while. I'd go down and exhaust myself to drown out that nagging at the back of my mind… that maybe, I couldn't come back anymore. That day Gareth pulled me out of the fires made me remember the way my flesh melted into my vambraces, of the sticky burning feeling of my tongue against a roof of iron. I was hurt bad enough to get rushed to the closest thing we had to a hospital here. Was I weak? Everyone keeps telling me I'm not and yet I feel it all the same.

"Oh?" a lady said.

I turned back and saw Freya.

"Thomas?" She smiled. "Strange to see you without my sister."

I scratched the back of my head. "We sort of got into a fight."

She raised a finger to her lips. "Is that so?" Freya tilted her head. "Something bothering you?"

I shrugged. "Quite a few things, honestly." I shook my head. "Ottar isn't with you?"

"He's back at the manor."

"I always figured he was your bodyguard."

"He's free to do as he pleases." Freya chuckled. "It's also rather interesting to see you so focused on me for once." Her voice had a sultry hint to it. She stared into my eyes.

"Well, keeping the mind link on after having that thing earlier would be in bad taste, I believe."

Freya leaned in closer. She hummed as she inspected my face from different angles, her cleavage rather amply in clear view. "Nothing?"

"I'm sorry?"

She held a hand to my cheek, her eyes seeming to glow in the light. " _Thomas_?"

I frowned. "Err, yes Freya?"

The lady raised an eyebrow. " _Very_ interesting." She hummed as she straightened herself out and walked to face the window. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"Shouldn't you have said a Varis?"

She waved a hand in front of her. "Don't mind the details, Tom. Now, what's bothering my little sister's boyfriend?"

"For the record, I'm not her boyfriend."

"Sure you're not." She turned back with a smirk.

"I haven't levelled up yet."

Freya narrowed her eyes. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I said I haven't levelled up yet."

The goddess puffed one cheek up, her eyebrows knitted together and crowning a stare. "What did you expect?"

"That after that last fight I'd already be good for one."

Freya put her wrists up to her hips, her lips pursed. "What the hell has Loki been telling you?"

"That my stats were high enough for a level."

She rubbed her chin with one hand. "If Loki says so then I'll take your word for it." Freya clapped her hands. "Alright, go to Ottar."

"Err, Ottar?"

"Yes, ask him how he levelled up."

"Really? Just like that?"

She nodded. "Just like that."

"Why would you help me out?"

Freya walked over and gave me a pat on the head. "Because you're like a black cat who thinks he's got it all figured out but hasn't the slightest clue how cute he really is."

"Err, you're hot, but I'm not really willing to go anywhere further than pointing it out."

She pinched my cheek. "Go on, Tom. Do what you must."

#

It was with the barest wisp of a plan that I strode up to the one place I knew had the answer to my question. Though how I'd go about asking for it or even just voicing it out was beyond me.

I made my way through Orario's streets alone, dodging people and carts along the way. The bustle of the city never really died down even during the wee hours of the night, and they were only encouraged by the judicious use of the magic stone lamps dotting the streets every two meters or so.

During the day, it was utter chaos.

Cobblestones clacked against my boots, one foot in front of the other in a trance that led me to the very end of the business district and standing in front of something I wasn't hoping of seeing again anytime soon: Folkvangr, the Freya Familia home. And with the lady's blessing too. The sun bore down on its majestic marble masonry and dear lord how much dough did these bastards rake in just to pull that off? Granted Freya might've also had some other sources of funds…

I pressed the unlikely button by the main gate and was rewarded by a soothing bell ringing off somewhere beyond.

The grand double doors from the mansion inside opened and an elf wearing a butler suit complete with coat tails greeted me a few seconds later after crossing the garden for a good few seconds.

"May I help you?" he said. His platinum blond hair glowed under the light, and his clear blue eyes looked almost transparent.

As crazy as Freya was, she had good taste. "Would it help if I said Freya sent me to meet with Ottar?"

The elf nodded, and with a wave of his hand, the large wrought iron gates opened with a silent grace. "You may follow me."

I stepped through the arch with trepidation, and it took three more steps before I realized I was holding my breath. We walked through the same garden, but it was to a different scene as opposed to just a few days ago. Before there were warriors and such, and today there were birds and animals and… a fairy?

"We avail of the services of Demeter familia gardeners every week," the butler supplied with the hint of a smile.

He opened the doors with his fingertips and they swung open with well-oiled hinges not a squeak out of place. I was led to a small cubby hole of a room that had a large window as the obvious center piece, and on either side of it were two long lounge benches in pristine white.

I took a seat by the window and it had a view of a small row of trees.

"I will inform him first" the butler said.

"Please and thank you."

The elf excused himself and came back a few minutes later.

"You may follow me to his study."

I was led up to the second floor and past more polished marble and came upon a gilded door with intricate patterns. The butler opened the door and let me in. There was Ottar seated on a large enough desk to accommodate his gigantic frame. The elf left us shortly.

"Thomas," he said with a nod. "Please." He indicated a seat in front of his desk.

I took a seat as offered, and it wasn't as horrible as I imagined it. For now.

"The lady had you speak with me?"

"Yes."

"Go on then."

"Honestly, I want to know how you got so strong?" I asked the giant.

"I see," he said. "Was there anything particular that happened lately?"

"None except I didn't level up."

"I see," he said.

"Please?"

"Very well." He nodded. "There is no secret to my strength, I simply did as I saw fit, always moving forward." Ottar's face was serene, devoid of any lingering sentiments or hidden hurts. "I went further than anyone had ever gone and then some, sometimes by the skin of my teeth for the simple fact that I could, and sometimes because I knew it would please the lady." His shoulders were firm and his eyes stared at me straight and true. "It was the only thing that mattered, so that I could give back the love she bore."

"So, you dove into the Dungeon over and over again and eventually you found yourself standing on top?"

"More or less," he said with a nod.

"No special artifacts to help you? Or any lessons from anyone?"

"All that mattered was Freya's love for me, and my love for her." He said it all with a straight face. "My first level I received after proving myself in the Dungeon, I stayed there for as long as I could with only my love to guide me and lead me home. When I felt my stay long enough, I returned and thus I was able to make her smile."

I nodded.

"The second level I received when I fought the Goliath on my own and won, and the third with the Amphisbaena. Admittedly, it was the most troublesome to fight given its tendency to move between floors." He rubbed his chin. "But I did it all alone anyway."

"But why'd you have to do it alone?"

"Because I wanted to be stronger than everyone else, my lady's love is large enough for everyone, but even I can be selfish. I wanted her to notice me more, so I did more." He closed his eyes. "The fourth level I obtained when I defeated the Blood Smeared Troll, an aberrant monster that had grown too strong in the lower middle levels, it had skill and strength beyond those floors, and it was a wonderful fight that brought great joy to my lady."

"How was it that a monster like that came to be?"

"You are not aware of monsters who feed on other's stones?"

"No, and I take it when they take in the stones of other monsters the magic contained within adds to theirs?"

He nodded.

Well, wasn't that an interesting bit of news.

"But I advise you against doing so on your own, uncontrolled, the beast could easily rise above your own strength."

"I take it you've done so yourself before?"

"It is no matter," Ottar said. "My fifth level I received from defeating Udaeus, and the sword I use now is from the shard of his blade I'd won. Though you can only obtain it if you fight him alone."

"Of course."

"The sixth level is my shame. I was only able to half-kill Balor, though after that I had to run with my tail between my legs. It pains me that I am hailed for my strength, and yet I know inside that this praise is empty in spite of it. That is why, your captain reaching this same realm fills me with joy, I know from that that I may still redeem myself."

"And what did Freya say about it?"

"She praised me anyway, but I couldn't accept it. I needed to prove myself not to her, but to myself."

"I see." This was the secret to his strength: a single-minded devotion to the only thing that mattered.

"I believe you ask this, so you too could achieve a rank up?"

I nodded.

His lips hinted at the smallest hint of a smile—or a smirk at least. "You are close, yes?"

I nodded.

He hummed. "Then all that you lack now is a feat, something large enough that anyone can recognize it as above and beyond, so much so that even the gods would have to acknowledge it no matter how small it may seem."

I frowned. It was in the same spirit as what Loki said before.

"Does that answer not satisfy you?" He closed his eyes and nodded. "The simplest of feats is achieved by defeating a great challenge, usually from the Dungeon, though it doesn't necessarily always have to be so." He grunted. "Your captain, Finn, he has achieved this realm as well from a different path than mine."

It was a start at least. "Something that would be worth telling a story for, yes?"

He nodded the slightest bit. "You may say that."

What happened then was not the universe aligning into revealing some secret knowledge, or the sudden clicking into place of the puzzle pieces to form a picture. It was instead the acknowledgement that perhaps something repeated enough times and with the evidence behind it was close enough to the truth that it may as well be.

At the end of the day, this all could just as easily have been a story on the pages of a book.

And the only ending that truly mattered was that I got home. Was it then that levels were like the chapters of a book and this gathering of exilia was like writing out the words one by one until enough was made into a coherent paragraph after paragraph of deeds? And this thing that Ottar and Loki had both described, was it not like how the plot would rise and rise only to ultimately release the tension in some manner? Catharsis, I believe.

Conflict and its resolution: man versus himself, versus another, versus society, and versus nature; Ottar defeated some great monster, and Finn overcame his doubts. Just like Loki said, it was in the fleshing out of a legend, of the story of Thomas. And what was it that my story had been so far? Some random guy got thrown into the thick of things and swept off his feet only to be told a convenient fact to get him what he wanted? Was the world really that simple? Yes, I did tell Lili to simply accept her good graces, but could I do the same for me?

As someone who knew better than to believe in things too good to be true, it was a hard no. Reach level ten, become a god, was it really so simple?

"Ottar?"

"Yes, Thomas?"

"Why do you wish to be a god?"

He tilted his head at that. "I do not understand."

"To reach level ten and ascend, isn't that everyone's goal?"

"We've yet to reach any legends as high as ten, Thomas. At best, there was a hero of the sword and carried by the wind that was hailed as a level nine, but that's all we have. Never anything about a mythical ten."

"I see." I extended a hand for shaking.

His palm eclipsed mine. "A pleasure then."

"I have something to take care of."

"I believe you've found your adventure?"

"It will be after this." I shook my head. "I just hope I make it out alive."

#

Level 2

Strength = I 0

Endurance = I 0

Dexterity = I 0

Agility = I 0

Magic = I 0

Madness Spectrum = I - H

= Grants magic affinity and empowers the user's status, increases magic damage received, requirements for recognition of feats, and susceptibility to mental status effects.

Tranquil Intervention = I - H

= Increases resistance against mental status effects

World Walker = I - H

= Increases magic parameters

Fated Actor = I - H

= Promotes growth of basic abilities

Butcher = I

= Increases abilities and item drop rate when attacking monsters the user has gained exilia from before.

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Madness"

Saudade = An area of effect drain spell that takes the magic and life force contained in all within range and transfers it to the user. Targets stronger than the user are able to resist having their magic and life stolen. Has a five-meter radius, and a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion. Chant: "Taken from the peace of home / I now stand beyond the veil / The aberrant demands reparation"

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

Enabler = Increases magic by an exceptional amount in a pinch and causes magic damage to siphon life force.

Mania = Increases endurance the longer one stays in battle and gradually wears off after.

Lævateinn = Adds a fire element to all attack magics.

Vindicta = Momentarily increases strength when retaliating against an attacker, the higher the damage received, the stronger the effect.

#

 _Four people surrounded a crystal, a small girl hidden within slept. Flashes of uncertainty, alarm, wonder, and awe cycled through the small gathering, questions were passed, guesses made, and no conclusions drawn._

 _The crystal cracked._

 _Panic._

 _Then warmth, patience, frustration, and pride followed joy._

#

I sat across Loki atop her bed, the paper detailing the change I should've felt ecstatic about lying between us. I got what I wanted alright, but at what cost?

"The godhood thing was a lie."

"Yes," she said, her red eyes did not waver.

"Why?"

She inched closer and placed her hand on top of mine, her pale skin aglow against the dark covers. "Because you needed me to."

I didn't pull away. "You could've said it sometime after things had calmed down."

"Did they though?" she said. "I'd been looking for every chance to tell you, Tom. But you were too busy drowning your sorrows out in the Dungeon." Loki squeezed. "You and I both know that."

I took my hand back. "Hence why I'm not blowing up right now."

"You're not like that," she said with a smile. "And you'd already doubted the godhood thing anyway."

"I still believed in it anyway."

"Its not like you to have such convictions, wasn't it that evidence was king?"

"I'm only human."

"And I'm not omniscient right now either." Loki stood from the bed and walked over to her bookshelves. "I was saving it in case we found you could handle more than three spells." She gave the grimoire to me.

"Bribery won't make me forget."

"But it would endear me to you anyway."

I sighed. "Can you at least tell me the truth?"

She took a deep breath. "Which one would you like to hear?"

"Whether I can get back."

Loki scratched her head. "You're all over the place Tom, one day you'd say we shouldn't rush, another you'd say it's the only thing that matters."

"The surprise is still fresh to me, of course I'd be confused."

"Then why can't you listen to your own excuses?"

"Because regardless of what, whatever I think of at the time will always make sense to me." I flipped the book over in my hands but did not open it, it had an indentation on it that looked like a cat head. "I… haven't been thinking too straight these last few days."

Loki put her hand on my forehead. "Do you have a fever or something?"

I held her hand and moved it away. "You still haven't answered my question."

She sat beside me. "I've been telling more truths than lies, Tom. And I've said it before, but no, I don't know how to get you back, but if you've gotten here one way, then its not impossible to go the other."

"Then why'd you say something about reaching godhood?"

"Because it was the easiest explanation to make you accept."

"Fair enough."

"Any other lingering doubts?"

"Wouldn't you know?"

"A little, but I'm not sure if they count. About Freya calling you a pitch black, its probably because of how muddy your desires and intentions are. And the thing about you being a pawn in some grand plan, I can't confirm that either. About your magic and your status, this thing about the World Boundary, it at least confirms there's a reality other than here."

I shook my head. "Then my guesses are as good as yours."

"Which is what I've been trying to tell you all this while." Loki massaged her temples. "I swear, it's a lot harder to make you listen to me than anyone else."

"What was that again that Finn said about me and the gods?"

"That you don't seem to be affected by our godliness," Loki said. "That thing Freya was trying with you before was her charm. Her powers, basically."

"And they didn't work on me?"

"For some reason, yeah," she said. "But you'd already come from a different world anyway, so why should that surprise me?"

"Oh, I don't know, other than the fact that it might be important?"

Loki shrugged "You can probably lie to a god, but unless you're any good then it won't do you any good."

"Gee, that's a lot of faith."

"Seriously, Tom. Art gallery?"

"Dude, that was _one_ time."

She raised an eyebrow.

"And that image I saw just now, the girl… that was you, Gareth, Finn, and Riveria looking at someone… was it Aiz?"

Loki smirked. "That's quite a leap of logic Tom, could've been anyone."

"I doubt you'd have left them alone, it would've been out of character for you, and if any, it's because Aiz is maybe even more absurd than me? That magic of hers, you never really answered my question on it yesterday.

"You never asked."

"But I did." I frowned. "I asked how she got it, but we went on a tangent and broke off… from there… What are you hiding about her?"

"You talk too much Tom."

"It's about her magic, right? Hers I wouldn't hesitate to call stronger than a proper mage's like Lefiya, but definitely not Riveria, and yet Aiz is so strong physically, and I'd never seen her use anything other than that magic and her sword."

Loki scratched her cheek. "Please promise me you'll never go into one of these tirades of yours without talking to me first?"

"You're not saying no to any of what I'm saying."

"Because replying would indicate I acknowledge something."

"And silence is just as damning."

"You'll latch onto anything if you're fixated on finding a connection no matter how insignificant."

"Why is Aiz so desperate?"

Loki was unreadable.

"Of all the executives though, Aiz seems to be the most driven. And is her secret any graver than mine?"

She raised a brow.

"Perhaps you don't know her reason either?"

Loki raised her shoulders. "We can do this all day, Tom."

"Whatever, so… what do I do now? I just lost my reason for wanting to get stronger, should I try and reconcile with the fact that I was probably already dead to my old life?"

Loki looked away. "That's one way of doing it, and another is to just keep going at it."

"Would it solve anything?"

"I don't know but doing nothing won't solve anything that's for sure." She poked my nose. "And I still need you down there with the others to keep them safe." Loki shrugged. "Who knows, whatever lies at the bottom of the Dungeon might hold the answers you seek."

"I guess you don't know what lies at the end of it all?"

"No one does, and us gods can't enter the Dungeon either because it gets… frisky."

"That is so not suspicious at all."

"It's how it's always been Tom; the gods aren't as perfect as you mortals might make us out to be."

The sound of my breathing filled the room. Sure, I was totally fine with losing that hope. That all my efforts of the past few days was essentially for a lie told for my benefit, I get it. I really did. It's just, it still sucked anyway. Oh hey, Tom, sorry, but there's no proper solution to your problem and we'll just have to take a crack at it and hope for the best. Yeah, that's exactly what I expected from the start anyway. Just, having it all laid out was… just so heavy.

Loki cradled my face. "You're making that weird thing with your lips again."

"What weird thing?"

"You pucker your lips to the side whenever you're pissed," she said.

"You've been watching me that closely?"

Loki knit her brows. "Well yeah, haven't we been… you know?"

"Flirting?"

Her eyes widened. "And?"

I looked away.

"Tom," Loki said, "what are we?"

I didn't know what to say to that. "A goddess and her child, according to your system."

Her face came so close. "And what am I to you?"

I couldn't look away. My blood started pounding against my ears. "You…"

She inched even closer.

"…are important to me."

"And?" her voice was barely a whisper now.

"I shouldn't."

She rested her hands over mine. "Why not?"

"Because I don't want to have to choose in the end."

#

Finn and the others weren't scheduled to get back until three more days or so, so holding a celebration for my rank up was put on hold for now. Assuming we could even announce it.

"I can't believe it," Gareth said. "Telling you to level up in a month was just to motivate you… but this… this is too much." Dumbfounded and more than a little alarmed, the dwarf held the sheet with great care.

Narvi, Rakta, Bete, and Daffyd were together with us and Loki. We were in Finn's study and discussing the elephant in the room.

"Thomas is strong but stupid, that's what matters," Bete said.

"But it's too fast," Narvi said. Gareth passed her the sheet. "Aiz set the record in a year to reach level two and you did it all in what, eleven days?"

No one in the room was smiling or congratulating me. Hell, I couldn't congratulate me. "And yet it is what it is."

"Your basic abilities and skills aside," Rakta said, "what was it that brought you over?"

"Thomas found out about a little white lie," Loki said.

"Aye, the godhood," Gareth said.

I looked at him.

"Sorry, Tom," he said, "I knew."

"I'll be fine."

Loki crossed her arms.

"Godhood?" Rakta asked.

"Loki told me I could reach godhood somehow if I reached level ten."

Narvi and Daffyd tilted their heads at that.

"Can you?" Bete asked.

"No," Loki said. "I just needed to have him focusing on something before he gave himself a panic attack."

I shook my head before saying, "And about levelling up in a month?"

"It was to distract you," Loki said with a sigh. "We don't exactly have therapists here Tom, I needed your mind on something else fast."

"So that explains Loki celebrating Thomas as not a crazed demon…" Daffyd said.

"The others didn't know?"

"About?" Narvi said.

"Me coming from a different world?"

"Like a different country?" Rakta said.

"Not even close."

"A different continent then?" Daffyd said.

"He means like another Lower World," Loki said. "Sorta like Tom here came from the Upper World."

"Thomas is a _god_?" Narvi shrank back, her mouth twitching.

"Now that's just mean."

"Kinda, sorta, no," Loki said. "Maybe closer to an angel?"

The three new executives' faces contorted into something unkind.

"Not an angel then," Loki said.

"So why tell us?" Narvi said.

"Because you deserved to know."

Gareth pursed his lips.

"I didn't mean it like that, just that they needed to know what they were dealing with with me."

"I really just filed it all under Thomas is getting freaky with Loki and that was that," Rakta said.

"I agree," Narvi added.

"Same here," Daffyd said.

"Gee, thanks guys."

"Any changes to the plan?" Gareth said.

"Right now, not really, besides maybe I should consider I could end up staying here far longer than I initially expected."

"Aye," he said. "It might take some getting used to."

I nodded.

"Will we let the guild know?" Narvi said.

"We shouldn't," Loki said. "Not yet at least. The next Denatus isn't until two weeks from now anyway, we have time."

"This would paint a target on Thomas's back," Rakta said.

"And have some idiots risk the Loki and Freya familias go after their necks?" Loki said with a chuckle. "I'm not letting Tom go, even if he seems too reluctant to finally give in."

Narvi fanned herself, Gareth scratched his beard, and Bete cringed.

"Good lad," Daffyd said.

"Hmph, Raul's too meek…" Rakta said.

Loki gave her a pat on the back. "Our men should really take a hint and make a move already, no?" she said. "Too bad Bete's irredeemable already…"

"I'm right here!" the werewolf said.

"At least this makes taking Thomas with us down deep a bit easier on my nerves," Gareth said.

"And I guess my next goal can only be to reach the end of the Dungeon and maybe get some answers… either that or get some kind of magic for travelling worlds… which would probably solve the need for choosing anyway." I mean, why was I on the either-or route anyway? I'm a goddamn materialistic bastard, why wouldn't I want it all if I could? And if I couldn't, then nothing was stopping me from trying anyway, heck, what's one more impossible thing to add to my already impossible task? The least I could do was be true to my desires.

"Thomas?" Rakta said.

"Oh, nothing, just maybe realized something."

"Oh?" Loki said. "Spill."

"That greed seems like a better driver than hope."

"That's unhealthy," Gareth said.

"Eh, if it works, it works."

Narvi raised her hand. "So… does that mean Thomas will be striving for level three now?"

"Why the hell not! Ah, and did you guys gain any useful spells?"

"I received a short chant lightning spell," she said. "It'll take some getting used to, but it should be useful when I'm part of the vanguard."

Daffyd tilted his head. "It's a bit strange, but I got a long chant type, not a pretty sight, it's earth based however, so it's not too bad."

Rakta nodded. "I got a healing spell."

"That's reassuring," Loki said. Then she smiled like an old man. "I'm guessing Raul was the first to find out?"

"That's not even remotely lewd, Loki."

"Who said anything about it being lewd, it was probably her affection for him that brought it out."

The bunny girl went red up to her ears.

"I thought Grimoires were like skill books?"

"They don't contain a specific spell, Tom," Loki said. "Instead they draw out any latent talent for magic, call it lucky everyone and Lili gained a spell, there have been cases where the darn thing got spent without anything to show for it."

"Hence the hesitation with mine?"

She nodded.

"We all knew Thomas was getting the last grimoire anyway," Narvi said.

"No doubts at all," Rakta added.

"Loki does like to spoil you a lot, Tom," Daffyd said.

"Aye, she does," Gareth said.

"Don't cramp my style you guys!" Loki said.

I sighed. "Thanks Loki."

"Ah, you know me, I try." Her eyes turned serious. "Really though, don't use it yet, alright? Let's see first if you can develop magic on your own after three slots, that book could end up saving someone's life down the line."

I was yet to see anyone die here, but the fact of the matter remained. The Dungeon was dangerous, and I was only lucky enough to have gotten a head start. "I know."

"Now then," Loki said, "to business. I was putting it off for a while, but we should take a crack at that mission Fels gave us, to check the pantries from the twenty-fifth floor and below. Once Finn and the others come back, we'll send the executives together minus Gareth to investigate."

We all nodded.

"I'm not too happy about this," Loki continued. "But it's too good of a lead to pass up on with what's been happening so far, and Thomas is more than likely to be connected."

"Right."

"We've got a few more days before the start of our expedition, and if things prove too dangerous to continue, we'll put it on hold in favor of clearing out the floors. If those monsters are anything to go by, then nothing less than level fives would be needed to properly clear the pantries."

"For now, Bete, I want you to take Narvi, Daffyd, Rakta, and Thomas to scout out the pantries in the first through twenty-third floors. It's unlikely we'll find anything, but it's still better to be safe than sorry. If you all find anything, you are not to engage, understood?"

"Yes," our team answered.

"Gareth will stay here to guard the place, while the others who can't participate in this mission will focus on training and or preparing for the expedition."

#

Lunch time came around, and for the second time ever I was about to eat something other than the bland rations we usually brought with us down the Dungeon. Loki wanted to come with me, but I needed some more time alone.

I wasn't done sorting things out just yet, and maybe I was still feeling the hurt from what had happened.

With my purse in hand, I set about just like earlier but with a slightly lighter heart. I feel like the clouds on my eyes have finally cleared, and that even if I couldn't see the bottom of the cliff I was standing on, that the fear was at least a bit more manageable now. I could look into the abyss and see the foot holds where before there was only the drop.

I also ought to send something to Freya and Ottar for what they did. Maybe some flowers? Women loved flowers even here, I think?

I went along North Main street and eventually reached Babel before I took a right towards West Main. The entirety of West Main was called Adventurer's Way because the place had all the shops you needed to go down a proper route. There were pharmacies selling potions, some diners selling rations, and even some repair shops for those who couldn't afford to have a smith look their weapons over for real.

It was the young and upcoming adventurer's go to place for the consumables for their trade, whereas the third through eighth floors of Babel were for the upcoming smith's. On that note, it just occurred to me that I ought to search for some better armor later on once I could dive deep enough. Gareth's leather jacket was strong by virtue of its materials, but what if good design could be incorporated? A textile-based armor that was padded and whose parts could more easily be patched up was more useful than a tough leather jacket that couldn't be repaired once it was damaged.

I was thinking something like one of those padded bomb defusal suits optimized for movement of course. But the idea was there, metal plates were heavy and prone to deformation and heavy, but a textile would be significantly lighter and more easily repaired, not to mention it'd help cushion some blows. Or better yet, have this textile armor beneath the plates for even better protection, or at least reduce the weight.

That'd be something I should watch out for in the future.

I eventually found myself sitting in an open-air restaurant and gazing up at the clouds. It was already a little late for lunch, but I had time. A waitress in a bright pink uniform came by and handed me a menu and I ordered for some roasted chicken and a side of bread. A simple meal like this was like a godsend in the Dungeon, and days of eating nothing but shortbread and dried bacons and cheese paled by a long shot compared to something freshly cooked.

The meal wasn't too expensive since I still had a sizeable purse from the last few days in the Dungeon.

I finished my meal and went back to wandering.

That grimoire… it wouldn't be a stretch to say that once we've completed this next mission, we'd receive some more. To bring together five of those probably meant Fels and the Guild had access to a source if they didn't produce it themselves. Hmm, I did forget to ask how those things were made… Right, whatever. Should I try it out anyway? I wanted to, but my conscience was nagging at me.

I also needed to see what had changed in me after my level up, since Gareth mentioned I should take some time to get used to my new body for a while. I didn't feel any different though, but I ought to trust the guy who'd done this thing five times before.

I went up to some of the shops along adventurer's way and browsed their various potions, clothes, and ration types. There was an eclectic mix of biscuits and hard breads, some potions of unusual colors, and thick sturdy jackets, pants, and vests and the like in assorted colors.

As for what my role was in all this, it was definitely connected to the Dungeon somehow. I was yet to notice anything different, and at most there was the infant dragon doing something out of the ordinary when I faced it. Gareth said it wasn't supposed to breathe out continuous streams of fire, but from what I learned with Ottar, Udaeus the floor boss only brought out his sword if you fought him alone, so maybe the infant dragon only did that with those same conditions?

And now I really really wanted to go down and test out this theory. Maybe if I fought the monsters alone there'd be some extra bonuses or something.

There were other stores here too in the side alleys, but they were rather sketchy looking, and I remember this sort of place was where we'd met Fels before. It was unlikely I'd encounter him again, and well, a sense of adventure was there still. I went into the side street.

The sun filtered in from the few gaps above, between the laundry and the wooden planks bridging houses together, it was a labyrinth of sorts more modern and minus the monsters. There were some shops here too, with signs showing the names of the stalls every now and then. I checked through some of the stores, some were selling some slightly rusted weapons, some were selling some not as brilliantly glowing potions, and there were also a few restaurants with simple stools and tables.

It wasn't as glorious as the main street, but here was lively too, though not as crowded. I checked the stores one by one, and one particular shop took my notice, it was called the Witch's Secret Shop. I looked into the place and found stairs leading down, so like any curious cat, I went to where it lead.

Inside the place was a musty wooden shop filled to the brim with all the stereotypical crap a witch was usually seen with: vials of organs and animals, different sorts of plants hanging from baskets and hooks, as well as gnarled samples of wood and a huge ass cauldron at the back of the place boiling over a fire. It even had a self-stirring thing, probably a spoon keeping its contents moving.

"Yes?" an old lady said. "How may I help you?"

"I was just looking around."

"Not too many find this place," she said. The lady came out from behind one of the shelves and she had the black robe, witch's hat and crooked nose set. "I suppose I might interest you in some wares?"

"Depends if I can afford them." Shops this hidden away usually meant a scam in the works or some sort of secret stash.

"Oh," she said, "you're from the Loki familia?" She was pointing at the small clown patch I had on my pants. Loki sewed it on when I bought this pair, and I never bothered to have it removed.

"Does it mean I get a discount?"

"No," she said. "But I might be interested in an exchange. I doubt Riveria would tell you of this shop if she didn't find you interesting enough."

Riveria, eh? Interesting. "Anything you have for enhancing an enchant magic?"

The old lady walked up to me while rubbing her chin. "What sort of enchant, child?"

"The kind that inflicts confusion on monsters." That was innocuous enough of an explanation, perhaps the madness part would be too much.

She grabbed my hand and looked it over. "And you can only use this from a melee range?"

"Sadly."

She grabbed my face and looked me in the eye, her grey pupil took up my view. "How far can you move it?"

"I can cover myself in it?"

"Poor child," she said. "Rather unfortunate spell you have, and you can extend them to weapons?"

"Yes."

"There's hope for you yet," she said. "But no, I can't give you anything." The old lady flicked me back. "I only deal with casters, child, your sort won't find any use for my wares."

"I see." I sighed, then found a book by a shelf marked with an absurd price—probably a grimoire, and… it had a mark that looked like a cat by the spine. "I don't suppose you have any magic text books though?"

"I have a few, but Riveria would be the better person to ask." She turned back with a crooked smile. "Unless she's been denying you this knowledge?" She chuckled.

"I don't think so, but it'd be nice if you knew something about teleportation or warp magic."

The old lady laughed at that. "Wishful thinking, child, and you're quite something to ask about such whimsical powers."

"So… do you know something?"

"I don't," she said. "Though if you go to the magic city of Altena you might find something."

"Huh, that'd take a while." Not that I knew where the place was, but it was a lead nonetheless. "What about any stories of having more than three spell slots?"

"Child, that Thousand Elf and Nine Hell are more than enough to answer your questions, and yet you ask this old lady?" she said. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Well for one, they're down in the Dungeon and I can't exactly magically talk to them."

She chuckled at that.

Since Loki didn't know either, and this old lady called Lefiya something amazing… "Besides, even if they could use more than one spell, they still only have three slots in their Falna."

"It would be nice if a little something could jog my memory," she said.

It was worth a gamble. "Eh, maybe I'll just ask Fels when we meet again."

"I may not be the most powerful mage, but you won't find anyone more knowledgeable than me when it comes to magic here in Orario," she said with a powdery white brow. "Good luck with that, child."

"Oh, but his grimoire's right there." I pointed at the book with the cat mark. "I was rather sure you wouldn't disappoint."

Her wrinkled face betrayed nothing. "You speak madness, child." She shook her head. "I suppose spending time with that trickster has made your head loose."

I got kicked out of the shop after that and I didn't even have anything good to show for it. At best though, I at least knew there was some connection between Altena, Fels, and maybe this shop if I were willing to stretch it out. Not bad for an incidental find, all things considered.

Perhaps skulking around these back streets might yield some more good stuff?

#

I was prowling around the back streets and asking around every magic store I got into, though I made sure to conceal the clown emblem on my pants. They all had the same things to say about Altena, but none dared call Riveria by name or mention their titles. No one also knew of a person named Fels, though I guess this ought to get the ball rolling. Almost no one but the fanciest shops in Babel's first floor also had grimoires, and none had that same cat mark. I was getting somewhere, maybe.

Imagine then my surprise when the one person I was hoping to meet showed up in front of me on the same day I started spreading his name.

"Hello, Thomas," Fels said from the shadow of one building. "Fancy meeting you here."

I stopped walking. "We still have that last mission you guys from the Guild gave us, don't you think this is a bit much?"

The guy stepped out into the light. "The Guild?" That blank mask of his was getting in the way. "Making guesses to my affiliations?"

"Actually, yes. You seem to be working towards the best interests of Orario, so I figured you hopefully aren't too evil."

He chuckled, but the sound came out like something from a jukebox. "What an interesting person," he said.

"You didn't say no."

"I didn't say yes either."

"So, what do you want?"

"A trade of favors, perhaps," he said. "I'd heard you've been asking around for teleportation magic?"

"Yes, I have."

"It so happens I might have a lead on that," he said.

"And what would you like in exchange?"

"Straight to the point, I see." He took out a piece of paper. "I'd like to hear your account of the incident of the twenty-fourth floor. I believe you might already know why I need you?"

"Because Finn and the others are too strong to let you get away." Which meant this Fels guy was somewhere in the realm of above level one but less than five, and the safest guess would be at four.

He clapped softly. "Keep it up and I might just sweeten the deal."

"Well, I've got nothing to lose." And if he really did plan on killing me then he could've already done so. It seems spreading his name like this wasn't something to him… or that he had these establishments under his thumb? How big did his influence extend?

Regardless, a fair exchange was in order. I told him everything about what I'd seen as well as the details on the new monsters, how they fought, and how they behaved, not leaving anything out about their abilities or anything. I probably should've told Loki all of this before I spilled anything, but eh, she'll find out later anyway—assuming I wasn't killed off. There was still that possibility of someone else doing Fels's dirty work after all, or that I'd stir up some other enemies related to Fels.

With someone who could dish out that much dough for a wild goose chase, he was bound to have a few people out for his head.

"This is not very good," he said.

And now that I got a better look at him, his proportions were all wrong, his arms were too long, and his hips and shoulders weren't right for either a male or female frame, granted it could be a quirk of the multiple races here. But assuming he was an adventurer, that also meant that some divine magic was at work at sculpting his body, and I'd already seen the transformation first hand with myself, and I was yet to see an adventurer who didn't have an ideal shape.

"And from what I know of the history of the Dungeon, its never happened that a monster had evolved. And those differently colored stones are something else too."

"Yes…" Fels said. "Might I bother you to prevent this from spreading any further? I believe you'd already know what a widespread kind of panic this would incite?"

"You could also offer to buy my silence?"

"I was hoping you'd be a better person than that." Fels rested his face on his hand. "Though I suppose that meeting you called with the other gods at least speaks of your character."

Was he baiting me into revealing something? "That was Loki's idea."

"Please, Thomas," Fels said. "A god wouldn't take a level one to such an important meeting if he wasn't important enough."

"And I suppose someone who isn't a _normal_ person either would indeed have their ways of knowing."

Fels tossed me a round sapphire crystal. I caught it. "That charm amplifies magic power, you might find it useful."

"I'm not so sure it'll work for me." I walked up to him and passed it back before stepping backward. " _Madness_." I engulfed myself in my black flames. Let him think what we would from this. "If it can resist getting destroyed by my magic, then it'd be nice, but otherwise it'd be a waste instead."

Fels tossed me the crystal anyway. I caught it again. "My wares aren't so fragile to crack from a few flames."

The crystal didn't give me any odd sensations, though I clearly felt a something pointing towards Fels. I guess that's one interesting I'd gotten after levelling up. The mana, I believe, was connected somehow. "It's not doing anything for me, Fels. What is this, really?"

"Please, why would I trick a valued ally?"

"Not necessarily for something sinister, but you might just want to keep me in the dark, for one." I held the crystal up. "And besides, there's a thread of mana connecting this to you."

Fels hummed. "I sure hope the Loki familia isn't planning on destroying Orario."

"It's not worth the effort, and it'd be a waste of all this magitech."

"Excuse me?"

Ah shit. "Magic is too wonderful to destroy, isn't that right, Mr. Grimoire-maker?"

"Hmm?"

"You shouldn't be marking your wares with a distinct symbol, Fels, it becomes too easy to track who made what."

"Ah," he said, " _that_. Sadly, the Mystery ability forces these marks on the items I make, I was hoping I'd never have to have this conversation."

"Does that mean you'll kill me now?" I started rousing my magic power to as best as I could.

"What? Oh please, no, you're much too useful for me to do that," he said. "I can just as easily buy your loyalty anyway, it seems." Fels took out another crystal and tossed it to me, and I felt the mana connection shrink. "That's one of my best works, a way to communicate from a distance. I can see and hear though the other crystal, and the holder of the other can do the same."

"Holy shit, this is good!"

"I'm sorry?"

I cleared my throat. "I mean, why would you give me something so valuable?"

"Haven't we established that I was trying to bribe you?" he said. "Or are you going to try and extort me for more?"

"I could, yeah."

"By then I won't have a choice anymore." Fels took on a stance.

I tossed him back the crystal. "Actually, we don't need the other one, and I'd prefer to keep an open channel with you instead."

He relaxed his posture. "I suppose you already have your own means of communication then?"

"That's not how you probe for information, Fels."

"You didn't say no," he said.

"Ah, but I didn't say yes, either."

"A fair assessment," Fels said. "I suppose this means we are working together for now?"

I extended a hand as I retracted my magic. "I guess we are."

#

I went back to the manor right after and had Loki update my status to share what I'd learned so far. Though I also took care not to reveal too much to the crystal Fels gave. He was even nice enough to introduce himself once I'd arrived to Loki, though I guess that was to be expected since the guy practically already revealed his hand. He didn't confirm any relations to the Guild however, nor did he give any hints to knowing anything more about the issue at hand than we did, but that was fine. We both knew we were hiding stuff from each other, and better the devil you knew.

The piece of paper Fels gave me earlier for my story also contained some mention of a story called Dungeon Oratoria, and Riine was nice enough to point me towards a copy in our library. It was a fantastic retelling of some hero who wielded a sword and was loved by a wind spirit, and it sounded too close to what Ottar told me about this mythical level nine. There were no mentions of any levels in the book, and there wasn't anything exceptional either about teleportation. Though I guess this meant there were other variations of the story given the difference between Ottar's and this one.

I was still nowhere, but it felt like a proper step towards the right direction.

Dinner was a quiet affair with me sitting next to Loki and the other executives at the table. Lili also joined as after a long training session with the other usual squads.

"You had a long and eventful day, eh, Tom?" Loki said. She was fiddling with Fels's crystal in hand.

"Very." I took a long and deep drink from the warm beef soup.

"You even got to hound out that Fels guy," Rakta said. She was sitting next to Raul and the two had he same dish for dinner, some steamed vegetables and some grilled chicken breast.

"I don't care," Bete said.

"Of course," Narvi said.

"What was that?" the werewolf said.

"Don't mind him," Gareth said. "But to reveal so much, and to bother Lenoa too, did you at least learn something from your troubles?"

"Yeah." I took a bite from the roasted beef. "The city of Altena and the story Dungeon Oratoria."

Gareth twitched.

Oh? Well, ain't that interesting after all. "It wasn't much, but it's still something." Hmm, wind, eh? And that vision too… perhaps?

"Is Fels a threat?" Daffyd asked.

"Nah, I still think he's connected to the Guild though." I polished off the rest of the soup. "We're in a mutually beneficial relationship for now."

"And you say Fels was the one to make the grimoire Lili used?" the girl asked.

"The cat emblem is his, but sadly he didn't know anything about having more than three spells either."

Loki massaged her temples. "Huh, having someone else pull the strings sure sucks…"

"I know right?" A piece of potato disappeared into my stomach. "Sucks to be kept in the dark too."

The lady narrowed her eyes at me.

"Are you two having another thing?" Narvi asked. "Didn't we already resolve this?"

"But taking jabs at each other is plenty of fun!"

"Not if you're at the receiving end." Loki pinched my cheek.

"You two need to talk this out," Gareth said.

"Yeah," Bete said, "it's getting annoying getting put in between you two like this. Just make out already or something."

"Lili would prefer you two did it in private."

"Same here," Narvi added.

"I don't mind if you tell," Rakta said, though Raul seemed bothered by it.

"Can't we call a truce already?" Loki said. "I already feel bad enough for keeping the ruse up for so long, and to think you'd hear from someone else too…"

"I'm trying too, you know, not exactly easy to have the rug pulled out from under you and be expected to run a marathon."

"What's it gonna take you to forgive me?" Loki stood up. "Do I need to give you something else? Admit to something?"

"It's not that, Loki." I shook my head. "I've already forgiven you, I just need to get around to acting like I already have."

"Lili thinks this might not have been the best idea."

"No, Lili, they needed to," Rakta said. "Things were just gonna get worse the longer they kept at it."

"I get what you're saying, Rakta, but I can't just flip my feelings from sad to not sad."

"But you could at least stop being so bitter about it," Narvi said. "You'd been giving Loki such a hard time all this while, Tom. Yes, she did something wrong, but that doesn't mean you get to lord it over her time and again."

"Aye," Gareth said, "it won't solve your problems, and it only ends up hurting the both of you more."

"Like I said, just have these two idiots make out already!" Bete threw his arms up.

"She only did what she thought what was best for you Tom," Gareth said. "You were a mess when she first brought you here, and you might not remember much of it, but those times we sent you to the Dungeon you really looked like you were ready to die every time. She was the one patient enough to convince Finn to give you a chance day after day."

"Shush, Gareth!" she said.

"No, my lady," he said. "He needs to hear this. We didn't give you a room with someone because she figured you'd want some sense of normal from getting thrown into here, she also didn't want you to end up accidentally killing yourself while we waited for you to come to your senses hence why I lent my you own armor. Those are the ones I use during expeditions, and that's why they were so tough. I even had to tell Tsubaki the truth of why you were using the armor she made for me."

"You weren't right in the head at all Tom," he continued. "We were throwing those parties left and right to get you to open up too and slow down, and now that you seem lucid enough to hear what I'm telling you, it's about time you finally heard what Loki has to say."

I faced Loki, her eyes were puffy now that I had a proper look. "I've been a total dick these last few days."

"Yes you were, Tom," Narvi said.

Gareth glared at her.

"I'm sorry, Loki."

She smiled. "I didn't really know what to do either," she said. "But you've calmed down at least, and that's good to see."

"Was I really that bad?"

"Yes, Tom," Rakta said. "Why'd you think everyone else was avoiding you?"

"They were?"

"Yes we were," Lara said from another table. She was another elf whom I'd never talked to before.

"You always had this crazed look in your eyes," Hector said from the same table. He was a guy with dog ears.

"You forgot to say he looked so pale all the time," Aaron said from a different table. He was… another beastkin whose animal I didn't recognize.

"He's a tanuki," Loki supplied.

"Ah, thank you."

"Thomas isn't crazy anymore?" Helki said passing by with a plate of food. She was an amazoness.

"Can we finally stop all the partying now?" Sybil said, she had the same ears as Ottar. "I don't think I can take anymore hangovers."

I stood up from where I sat. "I'm sorry for these past few days, everyone. I uhh, had a lot of stuff to deal with."

"Just make out with Loki already!" Una, another amazoness said from one of the tables at the very back.

I turned to Loki. "Thank you, Loki."

"Ah," she said, scratching the back of her head. "Whoever said I wasn't a benevolent goddess, eh?"

"Probably the many gods you screwed with, like Baldr, for one."

"Eh, he got better," she said.


	12. Vol 1 Epilogue

**Volume 1**

 **Epilogue**

Night fell.

The skies had given way to the day as twinkling stars appeared against the pristine black one dot at a time. Darkness crept over the lands as the hours drew closer to midnight, though the streets of the labyrinth city remained untouched.

Like a lighthouse against the shore, Orario stood with its hallowed glow, lighting the way home both above abd below.

Worries and hardships melted away under half-emptied tankards and chatter, some dancing, some laughing, all under the warm light of the magic stone lamps that ushered in the new age. All over the city was a chorus of those whose nights had just started, whose nights were coming to a close, and those who had no night to speak of. Rivira, all the way underneath the mighty city toiled away at an asynchronous pace to the world above. Rogues, thieves, no goods, and virtuous men and women alike worked without tiring to rebuild their foothold into the unknown. It was a service, or so their fearless leader used to say, but it was more for the things they could get away with that the spirit of the town survived through the trying times.

Up above in the town's highest point was an earnest wish, and just as sincere were countless others shining in their own little corners in the city. Those who wished to be stronger, richer, better, more; some who yearned to reach greatness, some who wanted to be heroes, and one other, who just wanted to go home.

Wishes and dreams burned bright against the void that stretched near endlessly beneath them—though there were wishes too, even so deep. An earnest, ancient, and chthonic wish promised a burning sky and the earth asunder for a thousand generations and forever. It sung to the stones and lulled with its promises, each catch like insignificant inch after inch on a journey of a million miles. A single stone did not make a castle, but enough could build a wall and more.

Enough was all it needed.

A solemn prayer kept the coals subdued but against the winds of change it could only do so much. The hands of fate were coming to a crux, the tune and rhythm ever so slowly churning into an unknown chord.

#

Loki felt the last conscious breath leave his lips as he finally drifted to sleep.

A sigh escaped hers as she slunk into her cool bed. The last few days before were the worst, the nights lasting long until the crack of dawn in frustration with Thomas none the better. He was impatient and headstrong and too stubborn for his own good despite the pliable image he prided himself in. And loath as she was to admit it, she understood all too well what it was like to be consumed with that burning need—just as another of hers yearned so strongly for vengeance. Too close, he came to the essence of that girl's desires.

A nice glass or a bottle of wine would've been great right now, she thought.

Her children were so young and impressionable and impatient and stupid, and it reminded her so much of her own folly. Loki dragged her hand down her face, her fingers catching on her lips as it passed. It was a long day alright, but at least that was one check off her to do list: call Thomas out. It was only a matter of time, she knew when she first saw him. She just didn't expect it to turn out the way it did.

She'd prepared for a mountain and got a molehill, though his growth remained something unprecedented. His ranking up was a surprise both good and bad, like a raw gem faceted without its edges ground out. He was her answered prayer, the super rookie she'd always wanted—granted Tom sort of displayed the same levelled understanding as her little hero at times, but he was still so immature and full of doubts.

Which lent to some of the hesitation she was biting back now. Loki splayed herself against her soft mattress and gazed up into the curtains enclosing it. A bit of light was spilling in from Orario's streets despite how high up her room was on their towers.

Could he really find his way home? How far would Thomas's bullshit of a status take him? Was what she saw as a sign of progress actually a foot in the grave? She prided herself in seeing through her children, but he was too tainted in the ways of subtlety and his desires too branched—too difficult to read, and just as frustrating.

Though, the hardships had a charm on their own.

If the rest of her familia were a bunch of toddlers so pure and simple, then her Thomas was an idiotic teenager whose only real merit—for now—was how much trouble she gave her.

Loki turned to her side and fluffed her pillows. Perhaps tomorrow would be kinder.

#

A flash of silver met the column of black, and the giant dagger shattered like a mirror against that desperate blow.

Jagged shards rained down on the doll-like girl dashing towards the titanic skeleton king, the bits and pieces catching on her skin and opening wounds with their passing. Blood trailed behind her, blown into a fine mist by the wind she cloaked herself in. Her sword wove streaks of light into her wake, and where she went was left the countless broken bodies of the skeleton warriors she vanquished.

Finn took it all in: her fears, her doubts, her worries, and her rage. She'd called it a black flame before, that thing that drove her faster and further than anyone else before. It didn't scare him then, but after seeing the things he's had now…

Thomas ignited that flame in her—in him.

It was that simplicity, that wretched, frantic, all-consuming desire that drove the boy—because he was no man—into the depths. He'd heard the stories he'd told Gareth, and from just that Finn already knew Thomas was not one for adventure. And yet here he was, treading that path harder than anyone else.

He'd grown on him too, so much so that that stupidity had tinted his old bones the slightest bit. And like that first breath of mountain air, Finn saw the conclusion he should've reached all those years ago: that responsibility was ultimately his to take on himself. The heir he wanted to leave behind was nothing but a sham he was hiding behind to escape that which had called for him from the very start.

Udaeus's arm shattered from the shoulder, broken in pieces when that silver rapier pierced the glowing orb.

The battle was coming to a close, the struggle between the valiant princess and the tyrannical king approaching its climax. Udaeus wielded the shard left behind with a fervor, the strikes coming faster and faster as the light in his eyes dimmed with each passing moment. Hail to the warrior king, his blows offered in prayer, but the princess's ode was stronger, faster, and much heavier than her shoulders had any right to bear.

A fight ended when the other could no longer get up, but a trial like this was one that must be seen through to the end. Aiz had gone on her adventure, and Finn was here as her witness. He and the others were but spectators in this solemn vow of vengeance.

Finn just hoped it wouldn't be the last chapter of her story.

#

Sunlight peaked through her thin covers, the warmth waking her to the dream.

Lili got off her bed and folded her sheets, made her pillow, and took her little wooden basin of toiletries to the common baths. Her days had only recently started this way, the habit forced onto her by new goddess.

Her shower was quick and cold, the sting of it a reminder of the life she'd left behind. It was too much, to be told that this was her life now. Too many times she'd wanted nothing more than for it to end, only for paradise to tease her time and again. And then it happened. Finn. The self-proclaimed hero from some backwater town. The same man who dreamed better for everyone.

The same man who dared take her under his wing.

Water trailed down her soft hair, the tangles and twists in it quashed by the efforts of Tiona and Riveria and their too expensive luxuries. Lili wiped her body down with a wash cloth that costed more than the ratty robes she used to wear. And her soap would've paid for ten meals spread out over a few days had she been frugal enough.

It was too much.

It was so much to hold onto the coins she herself earned now.

It was so much more to no longer be that weak Lili who could only grit her teeth and pray it would end sooner than later.

And all it took was the whims of a man too grand to notice the pebbles by his feet—all because of some idiot who was too blind to care for his own needs. Was it gratitude that she felt for him? Anger, perhaps… he was the one who insulted her way of life and undid all her convictions. And yet it was also he who'd taken the weak Lili and removed her from the Lili who looked back in the mirror now.

That Lili's eyes were firmer. Surer. Her limbs were beginning to put on some meat. Her ribs barely visible now. The lumps of meat were still there, the only point of pride she'd had in that previous life.

She pinched her cheeks as she brushed her teeth, half out of habit to het herself used to smiling, half to maybe dispel the cruel dream. Her nose was clear of the blackheads and pimples that used to dot her skin, and two gold studs stared back at her from her ears.

Lili touched the hand in the reflection.

She didn't know what to call this person standing before her… but for now, she felt she could start… with _me_.

#

The morning came along the wind, the cool breeze bringing with it the scent of fresh baked bread and firewood.

I tore myself away from the bliss of sleep, my blanket gliding along my shins as the plush fleece, soft and warm, gave way to the crisp air when I stood up onto the carpeted floor. I spread my toes into the rich fibers, I stretched my arms wide and rolled my shoulders. My joints cracked with the motions, and the sleep was slowly driven out of my bones.

My lids hid a small heat and a bit of dryness, and a yawn drifted out from closed hands.

The morning was a good one, like the first good sleep in after a long drawn out project. Maybe it was just me getting used to the bed, maybe it was the new blanket I bought yesterday, whatever it was, I was sure the four new pillows I had contributed to that. They stood watch about the fort, guarding the realm of good rest.

A quick shower and some clothes later, I went on my way down for breakfast.

Mornings in the mansion were a quiet affair, the calm din broken only by the occasional opening door and greeting hello. I passed the first flight of stairs and saw Lili covered up with a towel with her hair wrapped in another. Our eyes met. The beginnings of a flush colored her cheeks, but she simply waved, so I returned it in kind and she went on her way.

I reached the ground floor and was welcomed by the clinking of forks, spoons, and knives against stoneware plates and bowls and chatter by the dining hall. Gareth nodded in greeting, and I nodded back with a small smile.

Things weren't perfect, no. But, it would get better in time.

I entered the dining hall.

All eyes went to me.

A pair of ruby red ones staring their hardest.

"Hey everyone," I said. "Uhh, how's the food?" I scratched my cheek.

Loki narrowed her eyes at me. Then walked over with slow and measured steps.

She grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me around. "You… don't have your weapons with you?"

"Huh, now that you mention it…" I looked back. They really weren't there. I wasn't wearing Gareth's jacket or his vambraces and greaves either. "Eh, I'll just get them later."

Loki slid her hand onto the crook of my elbow. "Breakfast?"

It wasn't perfect. But, we were all trying.

"That sounds lovely, Loki."


	13. Vol 2 Prologue

**Volume 2**

 **Prologue**

Four torches blazed in the middle of a hollow expanse.

A ceiling too high to be illuminated by the small flames housed a hallowed throne of bronze, the shadows encroaching from all corners. The floor was a polished stone that reflected the warm dancing lights. No walls could be seen from the darkness, neither shape nor volume discernable in the space. Verses chanted for a thousand years echoed within and throughout, in each unseen stone a moment of eternity in solemn stillness. Its stirrings were coming closer and faster in between, from a century in passing down to decades, and from there to years, to months, and now to weeks.

It wasn't any closer to the surface, but it didn't have to be to act.

A better man would've called it madness, but to his immortal mind it was more akin to some shadowed game with neither the rules nor the extent of the board clear besides what he could see in front of him. There were as many factions working for and against him as the stars in the sky, with one end lying in ruin, and the rest of the paths diverging to however many branches it took to reach infinity. The pieces didn't come in colored allegiances nor in preordered sizes, and neither did they take any particular shape. Nothing was clear, and everything was steeped in secrets.

Save for a little black cat.

"I can't help but notice him," his right hand said, bones and robes and all. "There was… something in the way he stood out."

"Like a pest?"

"In a way." His masked head bobbed yes. "But also like a firefly in the night, mesmerizing though unintelligible."

"A sight to behold, but your description fails me."

"It's hard to say," the cat said. "If any, it was difficult to catch his lies."

Oh? A good liar? Now wasn't that interesting. "Are you sure?"

"He's different, I trust you've seen from the crystal?"

"I have." Thomas Sedley, a young whelp from the trickster's brood. If the records were to be believed, then he had just registered shy of two weeks without any rumors attached to his name, and yet he was clearly there for that disaster in the twenty-fourth. Something that needed no less than two level sevens to finally resolve. The boy was a mystery, one that stood by his goddess so closely and to her executives yet remained firmly in the dark. Was it by omission? Did they purchase the silence surrounding him? "But we've waited long enough, we can wait a bit longer to be sure."

They had time to spend, he just didn't know how much they had left.

"I understand." The cat nodded. "They've also accepted the mission to check the other pantries, and he was also gracious enough to inform me of what they'd faced… after a quick bargain."

As expected, altruism was not in the boy's interests. Not that it detracted much. Pure souls were rather hard to come by nowadays, and neither were they particularly in high demand. "Anything of interest?"

"None yet, but we can expect information to come faster with him in possession of an Occulus."

It was peculiar, to have his little cat so interested like this, and to think that trickster even had the bright idea to come to him and ask. It was entertaining, but none too fruitful. After all, he didn't know much either. "Be sure to send some compensation towards Hermes as well, we cannot afford to drain them."

Another nod. "I am almost done with the next batch of grimoires, and I believe it prudent to send a bit more? As a condolence, that is."

"It is for the best," he said. Their spies had been snuffed, and the few they could reach out to were dropping like flies. If fortune was on their side, there was someone in the works that had strength reaching upwards of at least level five to be able to deal with Hashanah so easily. And at worst, it would've been _something_. Not to mention there was a force that could transport something as large as the Vizored without anyone noticing.

That is, barring the Dungeon's permission.

"We need to bring more into the fray."

He shook his head. "There are too few we can trust. And any risks we take could tip the balance for the worst if we force the hand of whatever is behind this." There was nothing new with that whelp's guesses that they had not considered before: visitors from another world, an intelligence born from the Dungeon, even corrupted gods subsumed by whatever malevolent will lay deep below. There was no shortage of theories to come around, and barely any evidence to prove any one of them.

"I'll see what I can do." The black cat scratched its head.

He closed his eyes. "What of Lyd and the others?"

"They are alright for now. The Guild is diligent with keeping just enough in circulation to keep suspicions low."

The age of heroes and miracles had long passed, all that were left now were mysteries too sinister to keep in the dark. What few innocuous ones there were, they risked turning, the ones malicious that much more dangerous. "We cannot ask for more of our friends for now. Do not forget them, Fels."

"We need all the help we can get." The black cat bowed, and with a swirl of his cape, vanished in a plume of shadows.

Ouranos took a deep breath. Were they to place their hopes in Zeus's final gamble? Or was it possible to still cultivate a hero? The tired god relaxed in his shackled throne and restarted his prayers, the lulling lilts saturating the chamber once more.

#

"Firebolt!" His outstretched arm burst forth with a jagged blaze and hit the Killer Ant dead center in the chest, and the thing burst into a puff of ashes. The boy clicked his tongue. He was still unused to adjusting the power of his spell, and more often than not he ended up destroying the monsters by damaging their cores. It helped him clear faster, but it also cut down on his earnings.

The boy rushed the next insect and cut off its head with his knife, his sleek blade unblemished with the abuse. He could run his weapon through anything and everything as he wanted and it barely—rather, didn't show any signs of wear at all. It was daunting just considering how much his goddess had to give up for such an item, but it was also the biggest proof that her strength and love was with him at all times.

Faster and stronger than anyone else, he had to catch up and make up for that gap between him and his goal.

"You can go faster," his supporter said. "Don't worry about me, Bell."

He chanced a look back at Helun and gave her a firm nod. The heavens must've graced him when he'd met her that day after Eina suggested he find himself a supporter. He couldn't deny the benefit of having one to collect the drops for him, and the knowledge she carried with her into the Dungeon was the biggest boon to their newfound partnership. With her there, he could focus on honing himself better while maximizing his gains. Helun never forgot to remind him to focus purely on battling, and that he ought to leave all the collection to her. That way, they could both play to their strengths: him on the fight, and her on the money.

With her there, just three days in and they were already pulling in a steady income of upwards of forty to fifty thousand Varis, and to think they were just on the seventh floor.

The boy spun into an awkward kick, all speed and force without the grace, and crushed an ant's torso. His right hand with his goddess's knife destroyed whatever they swiped at, while his cheaper weapon was used to parry what he couldn't counter in time. He kept the words of the giant close to his heart: to keep moving forward no matter what, to scrape ahead if he had to, and to become strong enough so that he would no longer need any saving.

With a cry of pained anticipation, he unleashed a flurry of slashes and defeated the purples moths and needle rabbits that tried to attack from his blind side before moving to engage the next group that spawned. In front of him was a continuously crumbling hallway, unceasing in its release of monsters while behind him was the image of ruin. The walls, ceilings, and floor was riddled with cracks and holes small and large, not a single inch uncovered, a testament to the gauntlet he had dedicated himself to to burn away the shame of that night.

He had succumbed to a Mind Down after he'd awakened his magic, and that man, Ottar, Orario's king and the unmoving pillar he'd seen on that day, had saved him from meeting harm and even gave him a little lesson out of the goodness of his heart. And he wasn't one to waste the one piece of advice the man who stood at the very top gave him.

Helun kept pace with him, the ashes filling in the gaps of the broken stones. She made short work of clearing the corpses he left behind, each stab of his punctuated by the soft hiss of carcasses bursting into ashes. Her supporter gloves were barely stained, telling of her efficiency and skill with dismantling the monsters.

Eventually, they reached the stairs towards the eighth floor. He stood with full confidence in facing the next challenge ahead—since nothing would spawn behind him for a long while. Helun passed him a blue stamina potion and he downed it in one gulp, the fatigue melted away from his conscious.

"Can you keep going?" Helun asked him.

"I'm just getting started," he said with a fierce smile.

They descended with caution, and he'd met with the monsters who'd given him such a hard time before when he was starting out just shy of a month ago. The goblins and kobolds came faster and were fiercer than their higher floor counterparts, but it was nothing that would trouble him. It wasn't even worth the effort of staying any longer since the stones they left behind were just as big as their counterparts.

The ninth floor was like that too.

So they moved on to the tenth… in blatant disregard of Eina's warnings. She'd always tell him adventurers shouldn't go on an adventure, but it was that kind of thinking that led to the weakness that the king had come to lament.

And he wanted to be a hero more than anything else.

To be worthy of standing beside her.

To honor the faith of his goddess.

And to be someone his grandfather could tell other children about before they slept.

"It'll be dangerous down there," Helun said. She unsheathed the cheap great sword Eina bought for him when they went to get him some equipment.

He held the great sword in his other hand, just like how the king showed him. And just for the tiniest bit, he thought himself cool. Bell smiled. "Isn't it always?"


	14. Vol 2 Chapter 1

**Volume 2**

 **Chapter 1**

Heat filled the air, a bright clanging punctuating the roaring of the forge in the middle of the room. The sweat on my arms provided some small reprieve, but there was no comfort to be found with a focused blacksmith. I was seated on a heavy wooden table a few feet away, but each swing of hers still sent sparks my way—not to mention sent little tremors into the ground.

"Okay, so I had this idea for a fine piece of armor."

Tsubaki was hammering away at a glowing red lump of metal fresh from the coals. It was attached to a rod which she held in the other hand not holding the hammer. "Tom, I'm a little busy," she said.

"Always figured you the type to have your hands doing one thing and your attention at another."

"I'm an artist Tom." She shaped the lump into a rectangular mass with a few hard swings before renewing the onslaught to turn it into a spade-like structure. "But I'm no miracle worker."

"Right, about that." I picked up what looked like a thick and chalky horn but was surprised at how smooth and solid it actually was.

Tsubaki began pulling her work as she beat one end thinner and towards a point. She plunged the piece back into the heat.

"Fine job with the war hammer mind you, works really well."

One bloodshot eye met my gaze. "Has it occurred to you I might not have wanted to be bothered while I worked?" Tsubaki stomped on the lever attached to the large bellows.

Her forge lashed out with tongues of flames.

"Your door was open." The horn made a metallic ring when I tapped it with my knuckle.

She pulled on the unheated rod and set the piece against her anvil, the beginnings of a spear point or dagger clear.

"No it wasn't." Tsubaki shifted and turned the rod attached to the glowing work piece as she hammered out the bevels and evened out the thickness. Lines became clearer and clearer as the shape was cleaned up with her skilled forging. "You used your hammer to open the lock on my door."

The horn smelled like goat, if I knew what it smelled like. Wet animal? It smelled strong but it was definitely not wet dog. "Don't sweat the details."

Tsubaki shoved the piece back into the heat.

"Have you ever considered making armor pieces attached to a padded jacket instead?"

The lady grabbed a towel hanging on a ring near her and wiped the sweat off her brow. "What are you running away from, Thomas?"

I set the horn back down. "Straight to the point." I took a deep breath. "It's not so much a major issue, just I'd rather not be used like a human battery."

"A what?"

What? Really? No one knows what a battery is?

 _Yeah Tom, what did you expect?_

That magic stones are getting used like them?

 _Huh, oh yeah. Sure, that works. Still, no._

"Thomas?"

"I mean like a hardy magic dispenser."

Tsubaki nodded as she plunged the dagger into a vat, the top of it bursting into flames as the liquid inside hissed and smoked. "Right, Bete." She hummed. "I was expecting something along the lines of you having a lover's spat with Loki, but okay." She looked at her work, inspecting it closely with her one eye. "Maybe you should tell Loki that yourself?"

"Who do you think suggested I go here?" I pulled on what looked like striped brown and white rawhide. It was heavier than it looked despite it being just a couple millimeters or so thick. "He's been really agitated after hearing about Aiz ranking up."

"Must be tough." She nodded at her work, then placed it into a smaller forge just to the side of her main one, this one didn't glow as bright as the other. Tsubaki then took another rod out of her main forge and got back to hammering out a basic shape from the lump.

There was a blackish glow, which didn't make sense at all to me, but it was there anyway. A skill maybe? Also, didn't make sense was starting to get old, but getting into the habit of explaining everything away as magic was a slippery slope that led to missing a lot of the incongruities that could point me towards a lead. Assuming I didn't get too many false positives.

"Bete's already pretty bad but include Tiona into the mix and it gets pretty crazy." Really, having the two duke it out until they drew blood for dog boy calling her flat was already too far, but taking a sizeable chunk of the Northern tower's walls with it pushed Finn over the edge.

It didn't take much convincing after that for me to get the hell away.

"Wasn't Gareth the one babysitting you?" The work this time was a piece similar in size and general shape.

"About that." I steepled my fingers. "Let's just say a certain someone let slip that the king half-killed Balor for his crowning level."

"I see," she said. "So that's why you're wearing those rags." Tsubaki smirked at my state of dress, which wasn't all that bad all things considered. I wore out the rough spun clothes I bought in the bargain stores in just those few days, and by wore out I mean practically ran them to shreds with all that crazy shit I'd been doing. "And you asking about armor," she said.

The piece went back into the forge.

"Bingo!"

Tsubaki looked back. "What?"

"You know, you could just file these things I say from time to time as something I picked up from Loki, yeah?"

"Fine." She got back to working.

"On the subject of Bete, part of me being here was to ask if you'd be willing to arm a level one with a Superior like Flosvirt."

Tsubaki's face contorted into a grimace as she hammered away. "I can, but it won't be ready until after our expedition. Also, let it be known now that I don't like where this is going. I'm already resigned to making you comparable gear to some of my best work for my highest-level customer."

Sparks rained down on me.

"Because it's too expensive for a level one?" She didn't need to know about my ranking up. In fact, no one ought to know about my ranking up, except maybe Freya and Ottar, and hopefully just those two. Right, I should send them something.

"No," she said. "But because too strong a weapon will make you dependent on it instead of working your ass off to earn one." Tsubaki shoved the work piece a little harder than usual into the forge.

"I can't really refute that." Though the growth in stats I probably already had covered. "But think of it instead as insurance, I don't really have any good ranged options on my own."

"Are you trying to guilt trip me?" The anvil groaned when she slammed the work piece onto it.

More sparks came flying my way with that first hammer swing. One ember burned a small hole through my thin ass tunic.

"Not at all, I'm just stating the facts." It took the better part of a day to run through all of them, but really the only proper things that could take my magic were the more expensive stuff and none of the ranged ones. "Arrows don't carry my enchantment at all, and neither do throwing knives. The moment I let go of my weapon, the magic dissipates just like that."

Tsubaki clicked her tongue, or at least looked like it. I couldn't really hear much anymore besides the constant ringing of metal and the occasional roar from the forge and bellows.

"I can't completely engulf Finn's spear either, at best I could extend the magic to as far as a large two-handed sword like Gareth's, but nothing longer than that." Not even at level two did it allow me to do so, and neither was I able to ignite Tiona's Urga either. Not that I ever planned on using a Darth Maul homage.

"Get Loki to ask for it from Hephaestus. If she approves, I don't really get a choice with making it." Tsubaki pouted. "I'm not some easy blacksmith who's only in this to make coin."

Which meant it'd be harder to get what I wanted. "How about if I source the materials instead?"

"For an Aegis, you'll need two gorgon eyes from the forty-fifth floor," she said. Tsubaki quenched the glowing red dagger, it was the same-ish size as the first one. "And it'd run on my conscience if I actually let you fight something like that without you being ready for it yet."

Okay, so Butcher might help out with that. What I didn't tell her was that my new skill was part of why Tiona wanted to drag me down to god knows where… since if she could boost her moneymaking prowess, then the option of _two_ Urgas was no longer off the table. We already had a decent stash of cash, so we'd already held off on hoarding and instead had everyone focus on self-improvement.

That, plus the risks of running into the Vizoreds instead had everyone in the mindset of improving their gear as best as they could. Aiz levelling up was the final spark that started the fire, while my and the new executives' and Finn's level-ups were just the kindling and the lighter fluid. Loki initially wanted to include me in the investigations, but with Gareth fired up like he was, she felt it better to let him have his way for now and we instead revised our plans to put the investigation on hold.

Better have everyone focused on the task at hand than let them dive with second thoughts.

"Then again, if I can't kill something like that, then my goals would… take a longer while to achieve than I might like." Nobody knew what lied at the end of the Dungeon after all, might as well delude myself now into placing my hopes into achieving the last floor or something along those lines.

Tsubaki narrowed her eye at me. "What makes you so sure you can get home if you reach the end?"

I shrugged. "Nothing, actually. But that the gods don't know anything about it means anything is possible, right?"

#

After Tsubaki kicked me out, I went straight for my side smith's workshop.

I was signed on for an exclusive contract with her same as Gareth, but that included a clause where she could recommend me any replacement smith she chose while she was indisposed or occupied. It was some foresight to include such specific language into the contract, and Loki had a quick laugh after she verified the fine print yesterday.

It was just a short walk away from her forge, and over cobblestones and the occasional weed squeezing through the gaps, I found myself in front of a red hut not long after. It was marked with the number one on a plaque, the bricks were smooth and solid, and the door was a dark and heavy wood.

With Gareth all fired up, he took back his own armor and set down for Balor, with procuring materials for my stuff as a side-quest. The rest of our familia was already kitted out with the good stuff since they'd been coming down for expeditions long before I joined but there was always room for improvement, though the crazy expensive stuff was saved for the executives. The new executives were also hoping to save up for their own big upgrades.

Superiors like Aiz's unbreaking Durandal, or Bete's magic eating Aegis, as well as Riveria's Astra that for lack of a better term multiplied magic power, were these top tier weapons that cost upwards of hundreds of millions of Varis. What was annoying then was how expensive Tiona's Urga was, when it didn't even have anything special to it, just a shit ton of weight.

I could probably talk her into getting a Buster Sword or something, but really, enabling someone's bad habits was not the way to go.

 _Really? Coming from you?_

Hush you.

So Tsubaki had Welf make me some interim armor while she was busy. It wouldn't be anywhere near as good as anything she made, but it would tide me over until Gareth came back with the stuff. And since everyone was focused on upping their game right now, and that I didn't have any proper body guards, I wasn't allowed to venture lower than the eighteenth floor, so this temp stuff was also to dissuade me by way of negative reinforcement.

 _Damn straight._

Rakta, Narvi, Daffyd and his brothers were Gareth's supporters, while Finn and Riveria tagged along with him for old time's sake. Tione, Tiona, Bete, and Lefiya dragged a couple other level fours with them including Raul to kill their way through, as the bubbly girl described. Solving violence with more violence seemed to be her go to for dealing with the stupid wolf, but at least they were killing something else other than each other.

Lili was together with Riine and a couple other level twos, Ruth and Anju; while the other level ones, Agata and Tina were distributed to another two teams of level twos, Frances, Cherise and Liza, and May, Price, and Elfy respectively. Aiz was stuck housesitting with Loki, and the rest of everyone teamed up with appropriate levels so they could face challenges at the same level as them.

I knocked on the door.

A muffled "Come in," answered.

There were no explosions or commotions in greeting. I opened the door and stepped in. The place was the same size as Tsubaki's though the inside was better organized lending to a more spacious look, the floor was rough but not dusty, and the air was hot but not stuffy. Yes, there was the stinging smell of oxides, but Welf aired out his smithy more often than Tsubaki who never did.

I'm guessing she has the Abnormal Status Resistance developmental ability.

I made my way in and saw a head of red hair hammering away at a lump of glowing red metal. He held a hammer in one hand and a rod attached to the work piece which he used to shift and adjust his forging with just like Tsubaki did. "Your armor's ready," he said without missing a beat.

The ringing was steady and pleasant to the ears, not like the wild clanging of Tsubaki's racket. Though that also meant the guy didn't hit as hard at her. I'm pretty sure welding metal together wasn't all about the strength of the hitting, but I could be wrong. After all, molecules would diffuse into each other better if the mixture was more heterogeneous. If monster loot even _had_ molecules, that is. Did magic invalidate that part of chemistry? Did I really want to find out?

It wasn't worth the effort of going out of my way to discover since I wouldn't even have the tools I'd need.

"Hello to you too, Welf." Leave it to Hephaestus's smiths to be a bunch of weirdos. "Something interesting you got there?"

He didn't stop his hammering. "It's just another armor set, I was feeling pretty good after I heard the Pyonkichi Mark two already sold. Metal rabbit fur has a lot of potential I tell you!"

Metal rabbits were these pesky things that showed up in the sixteenth floor to the eighteenth when the Goliath wasn't there according to Raul. I hadn't seen them yet since they were shy things that rarely spawned just like the Blue Papilios, and their fur was prized highly for its high adamantium content and light weight, however, Tsubaki didn't favor the stuff since it was too difficult to procure and working it took delicacy to make sure the ingot didn't crack under the stress.

I walked over to the table and picked up the custom piece I had Welf try out. It was basically a sturdy plate of some metal wrapped in padded textile and held in front of the chest with a vest. Despite the strange request, the guy did an excellent job of giving life to my rough sketch, given the brown tactical vest I had in front of me. It wasn't really something built to specs, but the design and freedom of movement was there. Only the front was protected since that's where I expected all the nasty stuff to be coming from, while everywhere else of the vest was thick padded.

Needless to say, I didn't waste any time with putting it on. The fit was nice and snug, and it didn't hamper my shoulders. That also meant they were more exposed though, but beggars couldn't choose too well when their real designers were still sulking.

"I have to say," he said. He plunged his work piece into the heat. "When Tsubaki said to make sure to listen to everything you said, I never expected I'd end up making something like that." Welf nodded at the vest I now had on me. "The plate I made from all those killer ant shells you dumped on her, and the padding for the textile came from needle rabbit fur."

I took my knife out and prodded the vest's front.

"Why would you do that?" Welf said.

"I need to know how well I can trust these things." I also tried lightly stabbing myself in the sides and was thankful the cloth held when I did. It was just a light poke, but still. Ah, and there was something underneath the textile stopping the tip.

He shook his head.

"You added something extra?"

Welf smiled. "I had quite a bit of fun, so I stitched Orc leather beneath the padding." He nodded. "It took me all night but I'm really happy with how it turned out." He took the piece out of the heat and got back to hammering away. "If you don't mind, can I keep using the design for my works?"

I stabbed myself a little harder by the liver and was satisfied with the dull thud. The smith pursed his lips at that. "Feel free to spread the word, but I get a five percent royalty."

"Sure," he said.

"Really?"

"Yeah," Welf said, still hammering away. "It's not a bad way to do things, and if you don't end up dying the first time, then I'll see if it works out for me too."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I'm coming down with you," he said as he plunged the work piece into a tub, the steam hissing as the burning metal was cooled in a flash.

I scratched my head. "I don't really have anything against it, but I'm not exactly very helpful with protecting someone else." More like I'd always been that sheltered guy who only got his level up because of something personal than something conventionally heroic.

Welf took the plate and placed it in what looked like an oven. He then hung his hammer on a hook and took a large belt from another and put it over his shoulder and hip like a sash. "I can pull my own weight," he said."

"Wait, that partly makes me responsible for your well-being."

 _This is a good opportunity Tom! More safety brakes!_

The smith took down a large sword hanging from a hook together with a bunch of other stuff. "I'm ready to go," he said. "Come on, I'll walk you to your familia home and we can go and get ourselves some more loot!" He placed a callused hand on my shoulder. His skin caught on the smooth fabric.

It was an unpleasant sensation.

#

We walked the way back to Twilight Manor after giving Tsubaki a quick heads-up that we were going down to the Dungeon later. It sounded a lot like two kids asking to go and have a DnD session down another friend's basement with how casual the implication of massacring a bunch of mindless monsters was, but different worlds had different versions of common sense. So go figure.

It was maybe around eight in the morning so the commute to the Dungeon wasn't as busy anymore, and the streets were clearer of foot traffic. At worst it'd mean a small hold-up by the Dungeon entrance, but it wasn't that big of a bother considering how my focus for now was to get used to the jump in stats Gareth warned me about.

"Thomas," Welf said. "Or do you prefer Tom?"

We were walking down Northeast main from the side streets of the Hephahuts. There should've been some side streets connecting Northeast Main to North Main, but I wasn't too well versed with all the twists and turns involved that I still risked getting lost. I normally wouldn't have minded, but there was daylight to burn and passing it idly just didn't sit well with me.

The goal was still far behind, but if I didn't do something then I'd probably go crazy. Life as a corporate slave kinda guaranteed I couldn't live more than five minutes without something occupying my short attention span or consuming my focus, and it helped distract from the gravity of the revelations I'd just had.

"Either one works, though usually people only call me Thomas when I did something bad."

"Like a little kid?"

"Watch it, you, I'm way older than you are."

"I'm seventeen and this coming from a pipsqueak like you?" he chuckled while patting my head. Just because he was like five inches taller than me didn't already entitle him to this indignation.

"And I'm twenty-five." Why the hell was everyone so goddamn tall here?!

 _Nah Tom, you're just short._

His face fell. "Should I be calling you senpai?"

"Where did that even come from? We haven't been using any Japanese terms at all for since the last volume!"

Welf rubbed his chin. "I'm not really sure what you mean, but Hephaestus had me call her that a few times before."

 _I never knew Hephaestus was into that._

You never really know someone.

 _Too true._

"Just call me Tom, Welf." I stretched my arms. I'd had my new armor on for a while now and it didn't shake while I moved, running might change that impression, but for now it was a good fit. I didn't have any greaves or vambraces on, but since I wasn't gonna dive too deep, my skills ought to make up for the lack of extra protection, the risks might also help boost the gains.

 _Nothing too stupid, please?_

"So…" he trailed. "You've been with the Loki familia for a while now?" He looked my way with clear eyes and an uneasy smile. Was he forcing himself to make small talk? I wasn't really one for it and him tagging along was a little weird but not entirely unwelcome, just unexpected.

"Just two weeks." I didn't know how much he might've already heard from Tsubaki, but I wasn't gonna offer some need to know information he didn't already have.

"And you're already signed up with Tsubaki?" Welf whistled. "You must be pretty good." The large sword hooked onto his back swung with each step, it was distracting and dangerous to be lugging around something so heavy that loose.

I looked ahead into the street "Not really, I just got lucky." If it were any other god, it could've easily gone some other way. Freya might've also been a good choice, but that's assuming I _had_ one. If let's say, I was picked up by Hestia instead, I was pretty sure life would've been… a lot more difficult. Loki already had the connections and the resources to get to the meat of things, and someone with only one member in their familia—or two, had I been there, would not have enabled me the head start I had.

"The bigger familias aren't that easy to join," Welf said. His expression more somber. "And with the weapons Tsubaki showed me, you've been fighting much deeper than you really should."

"How much has she told you?"

He clenched his fist. "How much is there to know?"

I shrugged. "Asking for a favor of information is kinda iffy, you know? Maybe if you had something nice to offer then I'd be more willing to get into an exchange."

Welf nodded. "Do you always try to get something out of other people?"

"Weren't you the one who started this?" I frowned. "You were the one who wanted to come with me in the first place."

He chuckled. "I guess I am."

We reached the Main Hub and took a right towards North Main. A steady stream of people entered and exit the Dungeon entrance, the former with fresh wounds, filled sacks, and a mixture of smiling and haggard faces, the latter with determination, greed, and all other emotions in between. There were those who seemed to trip over their own feet, and a few who suffered for their ineptitude. Really, the only one like that in Loki familia was Bete and judging by how closely they all walked together it might not be a stretch to call them all from the same familia.

"So Tom," Welf said. "Tsubaki said something about you coming from really far away. Does that make you a noble like that vice-captain of yours?"

"Sort of like a banished prince, but sure, you could say that."

"You're royalty?"

 _A royal pain in the ass, more like._

"Not here." Heh, lol, not at all.

"You don't look the part." He looked me up and down.

"And I suppose you've seen royalty before?" Well, duh. There's Riveria after all.

"Yeah," he said. "Back in my old familia, Rakia."

 _That's that shit hole Ares runs. Buncha scrubs, keeps trying to take over Orario, keeps failing every time._

"Ares familia?"

"The one and only." He shook his head. "Not the best place at all, and not a single good memory."

"Good thing you got away."

"I ran," he said with a sigh. "And it took the sacrifice of my goddess to get away." His gaze did not waver.

"I see." Was he worth it then? I doubt Tsubaki would've introduced me if she didn't have a good reason. And since Hephaestus was in on the alliance anyway, perhaps this could yield some good my way. "Alright, I'll bite. But I'll tell you later once we're out of earshot."

We arrived at Twilight Manor after that, and the courtyard was almost devoid of people save for Ruth basking under the sun. She saw me with our guest and sat up a little flustered as she straightened her clothes up. She waved our way, and I waved back.

"Thomaaaaaaas!" Loki ran out the main door with my harness, pick, and short sword in hand. "It's dangerous to go alone! Take these with you!" She had on the biggest shit-eating grin as she shoved them onto me. Loki then looked Welf from head to toe. "I'm glad to see you're making friends, Tom."

I started wearing my harness and weapons. "You just don't want me diving too deep."

"That too," she said with a nod. "You're taking it easier now, so I'm a bit more partial, but try not to relapse?"

"I'll be fine."

Welf stepped up. "Hello, goddess Loki. I'm Welf from the Hephaestus familia, I was hoping to observe the armor I made for Thomas myself to see what else I could do about it."

Loki chuckled. "And the truth is?"

Welf sighed. "Tsubaki said I should talk to him, she didn't say why though."

My goddess shrugged.

"Tsubaki said that eh?"

"Yes," Welf said. "Something about you having an answer for a question of mine."

"That's a lot of trust to put in this idiot," Loki said.

Welf pursed his lips. "That's a strong way of putting it.

"Right, about my part of the deal."

A quick story about how I found myself here and in the care of the Loki familia and a rather lengthy explanation on what I meant with another world later, and Welf only gave a curt nod.

"Did you get what Thomas said?" Loki asked him.

"He lost me there when he said something about Tenkai." Welf kept a straight face. "I just know he came from further away than I can think of, and he's not sure if he can even come back."

Gee, thanks for saying it out loud. No need to bother whether it'll kick up some anxiety in me, sure, really, go ahead. I scratched my cheek. "Close enough."

#

Loki let us go after getting Ruth to come with us. She was a level two who frequented the front lines for the middle floors during expeditions, and she favored a spear just like Finn. We didn't have a mage with us since everyone else was down in the Dungeon, and there wasn't anyone else to spare. Ruth and I both carried small packs with us since we'd have to carve out our own stones.

We were on our way to Babel after picking up some packed food from the stores along North Main.

"Welf, this is Ruth." I gestured from the red head to the brunette cat girl. "Ruth, this is Welf." I gestured the other way back. "Let's all get along." Ruth was as tall as I was and younger by like eight years, placing her at the same age as Welf. Jeebus.

"A pleasure," Ruth said. Normally she was lazier with her words, but I guess meeting a new person had her keeping up appearances. "I believe we have a target floor?"

"Loki doesn't want me going down lower than the eighteenth floor, so I guess that's our limit." I had my Salamander wool cloak on since I was expecting hellhounds, but those goddamn Dungeon traps were making me think twice.

"The eighteenth floor?" Welf said. "Will we be fine?"

"You have two level twos with you," Ruth said. "You'll be alright."

Welf squinted. "You're a level two?"

"I am."

He looked at Ruth.

"He is."

Welf frowned. "Then you just recently levelled up?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," he said. "I see Tsubaki didn't tell me about that one."

"I've been adventuring for a while now, levelling up was just a matter of time."

Ruth crinkled her nose at me.

We reached Babel and went down the flight of stairs, passing through the first floor's threshold. As we did, a head of white hair caught my eye.

"Hey! That's my armor!" Welf said. He ran up to the guy who caught my eye.

The supporter behind the kid twitched.

I caught up to Welf who was slapping the back of the kid while laughing.

"You've got good taste there, sir!" he said.

The kid clearly didn't know what to do and was looking between me, his supporter, Welf, and Ruth. "I'm sorry," he said. "But I don't know who you people are."

His supporter squeezed herself between Hestia's kid and Welf. "Please don't bother my source of income," she said.

Then our eyes met.

This was one of Freya's level fives.

She narrowed her gaze at me.

Right, Freya's schtick. Of course. I pulled the enthusiastic smith away. "Come on Welf, you should introduce yourself first in times like these."

"Ah, sorry about that." He scratched his head. "I got too excited when I saw the guy who bought my armor set."

The kid beamed. "You must be Welf Crozzo then!" He shook Welf's hand. "I'm Bell Cranel, and it's served me well since I first bought it."

Welf slung his arm over Bell, and I didn't miss the look Ruth gave him. "Try not to give my name away so much," Welf said. "I'm too famous."

Pretty sure he wasn't, since there were barely any orders coming for him. His workshop was too clean of any wares besides the ones his large sword came from. "You guys also on your way down to the Dungeon?" I asked.

"Yes we were," the wolf in sheep's clothing said.

"Ah, this here is Helun Troye," Bell said. "We were just on our way to the tenth floor."

Helun, if that was her real name, shook her head the smallest slight. I wasn't stupid enough to not get the message. "Ah, a shame," I said. "We were planning on hunting some Lygerfangs for their fur, I would've offered to take you with us, but it would be too much for you right now."

Ruth met my eyes and I pursed my lips at her. "Thomas won't stop bothering me about how fluffy they were."

"Well, I guess that's that," Welf said. "But let's meet up sometime and I might be able to get myself my first contract!" He slapped Bell's back one last time. "Try not to die until then! I'll just be hanging around the same place you bought your armor at."

Bell smiled back and waved us goodbye. "I'll be looking forward to working with you in the future then, Welf!"

We rushed all the way down for the first floor and didn't even bother engaging any monsters until the third before Welf spoke up. "Why the rush, Thomas?" He swung his large blade at the Dungeon Lizard and cleaved it in two. "Was that Bell guy bad news?"

"Nah, not really." Why yes, Welf, yes it actually was. "More like we were garnering too much attention after Bell said something about Crozzo. The people coming down together with us all looked your way."

"Is it the same Magic Sword Crozzo?" Ruth asked.

He nodded. Okay, so that was clearly something of significance. "I don't know anything about this at all."

Ruth rolled her eyes, but Welf looked at me with naked surprise. "So you came from that far away?"

"Take your idea of far and multiply that by like a million times more." I stomped on the Dungeon Lizard's toes and chopped its neck off with my short sword, and a kobold's head was bashed in with my other hand.

"Remember those dagger things Bete always carries with him?" Ruth said.

"He does?"

"This will get us nowhere." She sighed. "The Crozzo family was famed for their strong magic swords, until Rakia lost the war with the elves and their family lost prominence." Ruth bowed towards Welf's way. "Thomas is really clueless about most normal matters."

"And I'm guessing there's something special about you Welf?"

"No, I'm just a smith," he said with a shrug. That was a horrible lie.

But I wasn't going to get much more from him right now, it probably meant I should make sure nothing bad happened to him though, since Hephaestus and Tsubaki probably deemed him important enough. We went straight down to the tenth floor where Welf didn't have any issues with cleaving through the large orcs, while I barely broke a sweat with the monsters. The change in sensation like Gareth said really was rather jarring, where before I'd feel the shock transmit to me whenever my pick crushed into something, now it was more akin to hitting something and following through without losing my swing.

I was cleaving through monsters left and right with my two weapons.

Ruth wasn't having any troubles either, he spear was a blur that sought monster hearts with each pass.

"We're making good time," Welf said. "And were you serious about getting Lygerfang fur?"

"Sure, why not?" I sliced through three imps with one pass. "We'll have to push a little further if we want to make this trip worth our time."

"Since we won't have the convenience a supporter would afford us." Ruth sighed as she skewered another orc.

"Then maybe we should've joined up with that Bell kid and his supporter." Welf swung with a wide arc and killed both orc and imp in one swing.

"That's horribly irresponsible, too big a party would just slow us down." Actually, Helun would've been a damn fine addition, but she didn't want us with them. And I didn't want to get caught up in Freya's schemes, even if she was nice enough to help me out. "And we can't guarantee that we can keep them safe either."

I caught an orc's club with my pick and redirected it into the ground, catching it off balance before my short sword beheaded it. Man, it would've been so much easier if these monsters just burst into ash after dying. Picking up magic crystals from the floor is a much better chore than having to dig them out through guts.

I was starting to get bloody with all the crap we were killing and not looting. Once the monsters stopped spawning, Ruth and I shared a look, and we both ground our teeth at what we had to do. We started piercing the orc and imp bodies through their chests, and the monsters burst into ash left and right. The splashes of blood along the floor and our clothes came undone layer by layer, inch by inch.

"Such a waste," Welf said. He was the one picking up the drops, and after we finished, he had about six orc hides and a dozen imp fangs. "But at least we have a lot of drops." He carefully folded up the pig skins and placed them in my bag. The weight wasn't anything just yet, but once we started picking up monster cores the weight would quickly add up.

We went down the eleventh floor and passed through as best as we could without inciting too much trouble, but we still ended up with a bunch of hard armored shells, which Welf was appreciative of. He wanted dibs on them, and I didn't mind. Ruth was really just here to make sure I didn't run into too much trouble while I just wanted to check what changed with me.

The infant dragon still wasn't there, so my revenge would have to wait.

Down the stairs and into the fog of the twelfth floor, the cover wasn't as intense anymore and I could see ahead of me enough to tell where the silverbacks were. And this, this was enough. I had Ruth cover for Welf while I ignited myself with Despair and partook in sweet sweet vengeance on those goddamn monkeys that kept giving me such a hard time. We got seven silverback fangs from the encounter which had Welf in a giddy mood.

"We're really lucky today," he said. "You don't get these many silverback drops with such a quick run! I should spend more time with you lot!"

The thirteenth floor had us facing hellhounds and almiraj in droves, but none of their fire breath attacks ever really got past their mouths since I could move fast enough to intercept. Ruth's reach also did wonders with keeping the more proactive monsters at bay. The worms were the bigger problem since they tended to pop out whenever they felt like it, the few tell tale vibrations couldn't really be noticed unless there weren't too many monsters moving around. We had a sizeable haul of hell fangs, almiraj furs, and worm teeth.

We pushed onwards to the fourteenth floor. More monsters were spawning faster, and I felt it prudent to engulf myself with my magic. Welf took it in stride when he saw me burst into flames, and Ruth's glowing spear that could throw monsters away with her sweeps funneled the creatures that poured in from any side paths forward.

I was the vanguard because I was the one with the ever-increasing Endurance and all contact with me already counted as damage. We weren't getting overwhelmed, which was good, but we weren't getting any breaks either.

The monsters just kept coming and coming.

We were wasting so much money.

But at least we were getting several drops.

Come the fifteenth floor, we found our first minotaur, and the almiraj all stopped spawning. It was a strange thing to say that the more muscular and beefier—heh—monsters with the long weapons were a relief. They spawned just a tad slower than the rabbits, but their large frames made it easier to fight them.

I received a stone halberd strike and directed it down with my pick before beheading the minotaur with my short word. What's nice was how singular their moves were. As long as I kept a level head, the tells were visible. Hellhounds would snap their mouths twice before building up the fire in their throats which would glow and let you know they should be dealt with there and then. Minotaurs on the other hand were always right handed, and the way they shifted their grip on their landform weapons would tell how they'd be attacking. If the right hand was higher up the shaft, it would always be a downward strike, while if the right hand was lower, it would be a sweep from left to right. And if they lost their weapon, then they'd charge towards you and punch with their right first.

Always.

Worms were larger down here though.

The ground I stood on cracked and I saw the beginnings of white, slime-covered teeth, I let my boot graze the monster and set it alight with my black flames before rolling away. Ruth swept her glowing spear and threw a couple of minotaurs off their feet and scrambling for their weapons while Welf took that opportunity to stab it through the back—and the thing burst into ashes.

We weren't planning on burdening ourselves with too much weight so this run essentially turned into a casual loot run. There wasn't anything casual about what we were doing though since I was beheading and dismembering these beasts of armored muscle and hide left and right. I was taking hits to my weapons and to my body every exchange or so, but the constant burning of my magic all around me saw to it I didn't fall too hard down the red.

Once we had our fill of minotaur horns, we didn't push any further anymore and turned back.

Ruth and I both downed some stamina and healing potions before setting foot back on the fourteenth floor.

#

We stopped to catch our breath when we reached the eleventh floor.

But were surprised to see Bell Cranel keeping a horde of monsters at bay with a great sword in one hand and a little black knife in the other. In front of him was a constant procession of orcs, imps, and hard armored, with the occasional batpat eating a dropped landform club that he'd thrown.

All this while, Helun was right behind him and cleaning up the mess and trailing behind the two was a corridor of ash that stood out in the pristine white of ground here. It was an impressive sight to see the young man who was shorter than me give it his all in the fight with the occasional flash of fire lashing out to destroy a monster he couldn't reach.

There were no other people behind or with them, and the few parties I could see off away in the distance kept to their own fights.

Welf whistled at the sight. "You don't see that every day."

Ruth looked at me. "Yeah, that's a sight to see alright." Her brows furrowed.

I shrugged back from behind Welf. Like I'd know what was up with that kid. But Freya wouldn't have taken an interest in him if there wasn't anything. "I'm guessing all that ash behind them was from him fighting all the way." Not even I could pull off something that grand. At best, the seventh floor with all the ants I could boast about, but not with the gear I had.

"I'm just amazed my armor's holding up to the abuse." Welf nodded to himself.

When the monsters stopped swarming, Helun tossed something Bell's way and he drank it. A potion, most likely. My arms were still stinging from where those hellhounds bit, and there were a few already scabbed over scratches from the axes the almiraj used. It was a good thing we didn't take any brakes going down, and I was able to keep up my empowered Endurance. It also helped boost my stamina, but it just meant I was consuming it slower and slower the longer I went on.

A stamina and mind potion together helped beat back the fatigue, but without proper rest the exhaustion came back twice as hard.

Bell saw our little group and waved. Even from so far away, the smile on his face was almost a given. I waved back.

"We should say hi at least," Welf said. He was drenched in sweat and had some red spots here and there over his arms and face. I tried my best to keep away the Hellhound breaths, but I was only one guy. Ruth also gave it her best, but we weren't perfect. There were cuts across the exposed skin on her arms, and her bobbed hair was singed in a few places.

My new armor at least survived the ordeal, but it'd take some time to properly repair. Okay, so textile padding wasn't exactly the best idea since replacements would have to be sowed on as compared to simple metal plates that just need some beating back into place. And given how efficient the smiths were here, maybe this kind of specialized gear wasn't that good. Admittedly it was only the industrialization of my world that allowed the prolific use of a lot of things like bullets, cars, and body armor.

This place didn't really have that.

Against my better judgement, we walked over to Bell and Helun.

"That's an impressive sight," Welf said. He pointed at the carpet of ash leading all the way up to the two.

"All in a day's work," Bell said with a smile. "Though I'm sorry if I got so many scratches on your work."

The smith shrugged and moved closer, while I took the chance to get near Helun.

" _Uhh, are we getting in the way?_ "

" _Just don't distract us too much_ ," she whispered back.

Bell and Welf got into a discussion about smithing and the latter made a point to sell Bell some of his work, even inviting him over to his forge if he'd like some stuff made.

" _He's a good smith_ ," I said. Not that I really knew much, I just hoped the level five didn't turn Welf into a stain down here. Assuming it wasn't above Freya's methods to do so. " _I don't know about the weapons, but this vest of mine survived against minotaurs_."

Ruth made sure to stay within earshot.

" _I'll report to her that he indeed is_ ," Helun said with a nod. Her bag was filled to bursting with magic stones and drop loots. " _The lady will be pleased to know he met someone good_."

While Welf was talking with Bell, a roar echoed from the other end of the floor. Our unlikely group of five all looked to where it came from, and from the same direction came a bunch of people running the other way.

I threw my arms up. "Finally!"

"Thomas, no," Ruth said.

"Thomas, yes." I readied my pick and short sword.

"That's gotta be the infant dragon," Welf said with a frown.

Bell put on a fierce smile, and Helun passed him a great sword without question. "That sounds like a challenge."

Helun raised a brow my way. Shit, did they want to take this on themselves? "We should… team up if we want to take it down?"

The level five nodded ever so slightly. " _Keep him safe_ ," she whispered.

And from the look on Ruth's face, she heard it too.

"I guess it won't be too much use, but just so you know, if you solo the infant dragon it uses a continuous fire breath attack."

"Thank you," Bell said, "but I don't think I've heard your name yet? Bell Cranel." He extended a hand my way.

I shook his hand. "Thomas Sedley."

We nodded at each other, and then he went over to Ruth. "Ruth Paling," she introduced herself.

"I'll be in your care then," Bell said. "Shall we?"

Ruth and I passed our bags to Helun and the five of us ran over to meet the baby dragon. It didn't take long to see the orange hide and the burning white grass surrounding it. There was a party of six already engaging it.

Two of the group stayed in front with sword and shields out, and another two and two took the sides, harassing the beast with spears. It was a good set-up, since it kept the beast distracted while the spears dissuaded it from taking to the sides. What they couldn't do, however, was prevent it from breaking in from the front.

The dragon charged forward, spears and swords be damned and shot a ball of flame at the two in front of it. Fire washed over the shields and the two retaliated with slashes while the spears wounded it as best as they could.

"We were too late," Helun said.

But just then some orcs started spawning near the group.

"We should help!" Bell was already running forward with his great sword.

Helun rubbed her temples with one hand. She looked at me with a tired nudge and jerked her chin towards the commotion. Please. Went the unvoiced suggestion. Well, order.

"Come on Ruth, Welf, we should be the better people here."

The three of us followed close behind, and the fight lasted a lot longer than when I fought the damned thing myself. Granted poking the huge ass beast with small ass spears and a lack of resolve didn't lead to larger injuries than just minor flesh wounds. Hell, I could've given that thing a more fatal blow with my short sword and ten times the risk, but no, these guys didn't give two shits about the favor the three of us were doing them.

From the get go, Ruth and I didn't bother with killing the monsters with crystal retrieval in mind, so we went straight for their cores, causing a bunch of ash to burst every other kill. The ones we couldn't outright destroy went down easily, and thanks to us being on a higher floor, the exhaustion wasn't as bad like with the fifteenth floor.

My buff also didn't wait long enough to reset, so I didn't bother defending anymore and just focused on killing.

Welf was also doing his fair share, but Bell easily kept pace with me and Ruth. Judging by the floor he was on, he couldn't have been anything but a level one, but the way he fought made me think at least level two. If any, he probably had a bunch of bullshit skills like me, hence Freya's interest. Did she want to take him from Hestia though? Not impossible.

Was Hestia still alive? The easiest way to get Bell would be to make his goddess disappear then swoop in like a knight in shining armor. After all, Helun was already keeping tabs on him.

 _Itty-bitty's still here Tom, I just saw her a day or two ago._

Freya's up to something.

 _She probably just wants to bed him or something._

Oh.

 _Yeah, she does that a lot. I'm just thankful she only goes for humans and beastkin, she doesn't really pay any other race any mind. Even the elves._

A dedicated fetishist?

 _Sadly._

Says the goddess who made up her own harem.

 _Eh, we're only mortal right now._

You gods all had screws loose though.

 _Eternity gets boring._

Fair enough.

After the, I don't know, twentieth orc hide to fall to the floor and the I already lost count of how many hard armored shells littered the ground, the infant dragon finally went down to one knee. It was a constant game of chase with the lizard, with the six encircling it once it stopped running and poking and prodding and taunting it until it ran forward again, and they'd repeat the process. It was a smart way of doing it too, but again we the assholes who got roped into defending their asses ended up with the shorter end of the stick since.

 _Are you done yet?_

No.

That didn't mean the fight was over though, not even by a long shot. The dragon kept going and going, and I had to take another stamina potion just to keep up the farce of a fight, and by then Helun who was lugging around my and Ruth's bags also already filled the both of them with an absurd amount of loot. Enough to alarm.

 _Are you done yet?_

No.

Welf had to tag out by the time the dragon flinched again, but on and on Ruth, Bell, and I continued to defend the joke of a party in the purple robes and toothpicks.

 _Are you done yet?_

No.

Ruth eventually tagged out too when the dragon couldn't run anymore.

 _Are you done yet?_

Soon.

The group of six closed in on the dragon and kept on stabbing at it from the distance, and now that I got a better look, the two with the swords and shields had katanas paired with kite shields. Fucking chuunis. The big and tall guy hacked away together with the girl in the ponytail, and only now did I remember these two from the emergency meeting. They were Takemikazuchi's two guards.

One last roar came from the dragon, and the thing finally dissolved into ash.

I couldn't help but face palm. These idiots just wasted three hundred grand.

The six all collapsed one after the other, some panting, some outright flat on the ground.

Bell was on their case and already passing out potions like free bottles of water.

 _Are you done yet?_

Yeah.

 _That took you guys like two hours._

Not us, Takemikazuchi's scrubs took two hours.

 _Why?_

Because they were all prissy hicks.

 _No, I mean, why'd you help them?_

Hestia's kid wanted to.

 _Eh? Why?_

Kid wanted to do the right thing maybe? Probably.

He was already helping the others up and together they were laughing and what not. Introductions were made, after Welf and Ruth caught up together with Helun who was lugging around a bunch of crap. The dragon also left behind a sizable portion of its skin.

The large man, Ouka, stepped up. "We thank you for helping us defeat the infant dragon, please, as thanks, you should take the drop it left behind."

Bell was about to object when Helun spoke up. "That would be appreciated, it should help us cover some of our expenses."

She also passed me and Ruth some purple potions, these ones different from the regular blue ones she passed the Takemikazuchi familia. " _Double potions_ ," she whispered.

I shrugged and chugged it down and immediately felt like I'd just woken in the morning. Ruth looked just as surprised, before glaring at the insignia on the flask. I checked as well, and it was the reserve stock the Dian Cecht familia used only for their finest products. No wonder the thing worked so well.

Bell was getting spoiled to high heaven and he probably didn't even know it.

How much cash was Freya willing to shell out for him anyway?

 _Enough cash to see her goals through, Tom. And yes, she has a shit ton of money to burn._

Why aren't we that cool?

 _Well for one Freya's a cheating cheater since she can see into people's souls._

Totally called it.

 _Yeah, whatever. And those souls predisposed to becomes warriors are the ones she keeps snapping up as they show up in Orario, hence not a lot of other gods getting a fair share of the new talent._

And yet you have your executives and me.

 _That's because I'm lucky._

From three people to an unlikely party of five wiping the asses of six other people to a merry band of eleven. We went up the Dungeon together and even had a late lunch at the Hostess of Fertility all care of Bell's earnings. Food was cheap in the more mundane eateries by the side streets at around fifty to a hundred and fifty if you were feeling like splurging, but at the Hostess that was right at the forefront of Adventurer's Way, a satisfying meal went upwards of three hundred for the smaller ones, and seven for the really good stuff. It was worth every Varis though, and Mama Mia made a real mean beef roast.

Still, paying for eleven people was a lot.

After it all, we went our separate ways with Bell leaving his Salamander Hide with Welf for processing. The smith even said he'd make something for him for free if the guy agreed to a contract, which Bell immediately did. The honest idiot with a past just got along so well with the pervert goddess's poster boy that they even already had a date set up for their discussion on what to do with the stuff. That didn't come out right.

My and Ruth's bags were getting held together by tied up orc hide since it was long past the point of bursting. We left all of it and the hard armored shells and imp fangs with Welf, but the minotaur horns, hellhound fangs, worm teeth and almiraj fur we were to take elsewhere but still to a smith of Hephaestus.

Ruth and I were still going strong from the effects of that last potion Helun gave us.

"So you knew Helun?" she asked.

"Not directly, but she's part of Freya familia. Best we keep that part secret." Our bags weren't that full anymore, but the horns and other things still clunked around.

She let out a long sigh. "Is spending time with you always this crazy?"

"Please don't phrase it like that, it makes it sound like I have a track record."

We passed by Tsubaki's workshop, and literally walked up to the hut right next to it.

"You do," Ruth said with a flat glare. Her cat ears were flat against her head. "Rakta told me all about what happened in the twenty-fourth floor."

"For the record, that was _not_ me at all." Though there were a lot of signs that easily marked me as an easy cause. But still, it was the principle of the matter. We didn't have proof.

Ruth knocked on the door, and a gruff bark answered. "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming."

A second later and the door opened to a dwarf with a greyed beard and hair, it was the same one Hephaestus took with her as a guard together with Tsubaki. He looked at me with annoyance, but his eyes softened when they went to Ruth.

"Ah, Ruth, and… why do you look familiar?" He stepped aside and motioned for us to come in.

"We met during the last meeting of the gods." I went in after Ruth.

"Oh, that weird kid. Right." He shrugged. "Just leave the drop loot over in that pile over there." He pointed at a large section of the shop that was just a bunch of random crap organized somewhat in piles. "Cabeiri Copperbell," he said.

I guess that was an introduction. He wasn't really paying attention though, since he was already walking to elsewhere. "Thomas Sedley."

"Good good," he said with a wave, then disappeared behind another door.

"Weird guy."

"Eh, we're in the Loki familia," Ruth said.

"Fair."

"He's the guy Hephaestus assigned to us," she continued, "most of our stock weapons come from him and his team and any loot we don't want to keep for ourselves we all leave with him, but I guess you leave yours with Tsubaki?"

"Usually, yeah." I set down my bag and got to segregating the different stuff.

Ruth did the same, and after a minute or two we finished dropping off the stuff and made our way back to the manor. It was a strange feeling to be out of the Dungeon so early and not be slaving away until night time, but I guess this was the norm? I also dropped off my new armor at Welf's place to have the gashes repaired. The main plate wasn't damaged too badly, but the padding was torn in places where the almiraj axes found their mark. Some cuts along my arms were nothing in the grand scheme of protecting the fleshier parts of me. Still, greaves and vambraces were a definite must no matter what, but maybe straight on metal armor might be more economical and easier to repair on the fly.

I still had another week and few more days before the start of the expedition, and Gareth was yet to return with the final pieces that would become my own personal set. I had time to decide until then, though there was also just leaving the design up to Tsubaki.


	15. Vol 2 Chapter 2

**Volume 2**

 **Chapter 2**

After getting back home, there wasn't much of anything to do so I went out again to maybe finally get that present I'd been meaning to. I didn't have a fortune with me, but I had enough money put away to get a few fancy things. Maybe. But not on the absurd level of a grimoire or something. Besides, what did you give someone who already had everything they could possibly need and could afford anything they wanted anyway?

Simple, nothing special.

A fruit basket it was then. Loki also tagged along since she was bored out of her mind, and Ruth didn't have anything better to do. It was a strange feeling to have only three people inside of such a large house. Maybe it was a product of my living in much smaller spaces?

The three of us made our way down to Southwest main where the wet market and adventurer's bazaar were, partly in the hopes of getting a good deal, and partly just for the heck of it since I'd never seen the bazaar before. It was the go to place for those who didn't have any exclusive contracts with some production familia or for those willing to go out of their way to maybe get a good deal themselves.

Southwest main had another street that gently led away from the main one and opened up to double the street size, from about five modern day sedans wide to approximately nine or ten. Shops lining the street gave way to two sides, the wet markets to the right, and the bazaar to the left.

The wet markets were a bunch of little brick huts all arranged in a grid of main streets and little streets in between. The areas were marked with signs visible from the main intersections, pictographs showing where the seafood or produce was to name a few, and further subdivided into smaller groups like fish, shellfish and I guess crabs? There were also sections for fruits and meats, and really, anything and everything under the sun.

On the other side was the bazaar which was… utter chaos, to put it kindly. There were more people than wares, and what few huts there were had no definite shape or theme in mind. Stall sizes were all over the place and none of them gave a crap where one was built and another ended. Everyone was arguing from the looks of it, and the only smiles there were were on the people with the really huge ass weapons displayed for everyone to see.

"Barters are the norm in the bazaar," Loki said. "But don't bother, the only people who go there are cheats and noobs. Loot worth a fortune won't survive the vultures hanging around, and anyone with at least two brain cells to slap together should already have had the bright idea to get one of the bigger places to help them out." She shrugged. "Sure, the sale won't net them as big a price if they don't have a relationship yet, but it's getting their name in the good books that matter."

I frowned at the guys in the battered armors looking distraught as they talked to some other group of people. The poorer looking lot had a horn while the other group had what looked like a bunch of rocks. Could've been ores, could've been just plain old rocks. Too risky. "That's kinda cynical."

"Orario isn't an honest place," Ruth said with a sneer. Her cat ears stood straight up. "Like those guys shaking down those beginners." She pointed at the group I was looking at.

I pursed my lips. "Hestia's kid wouldn't last a day here, and Bete would probably start a riot before anything else."

The two with me nodded.

Had Ruth and I kept some of our loot, then maybe we could've used it to exchange for stuff, but it didn't take a genius to note that showing up with a bag full of orc hide would probably trigger a few red flags. Same went for having a bunch of minotaur horns too. Not impossible, theoretically, but it would call attention both good and bad.

Ruth's brown cat tail swished back and forth. "It never occurred to me you were the type to consider a wet market, Tom."

"A wet market is a damn good place to be at if you want good and fresh food. Everyone who's anyone would go here to get only the best ingredients."

"Not to mention it's usually cheaper?" Loki raised a brow.

"Making a living in the city isn't as easy." I shrugged. "You save where and whenever you can."

Ruth's ears perked up. "I've heard some of the stories passed around, and I was hoping to ask some myself."

I looked at Loki. She nodded back with a smile. I was already a level two anyway, and Freya already knew my secret and had no intention—hopefully—of ever taking me by force. Anyone who valued their lived wouldn't cross us anymore, probably.

"Fire away."

Ruth tilted her head at me, her cat ears flat against her head. "Fire?"

"It's a saying from back home, it means go ahead whenever you feel like."

"Oh." Her tail swished. "Right, so what did the home you come from look like?"

We entered the fruit section of the wet markets and I got a good look at the produce. And, there wasn't anything different at all. The same apples, both the red delicious, granny smiths, and fuji colors were there, or at least, those were the ones I identified in that one apple stall with a whole bunch of other varieties of apples judging by the pyramids they had. There were like seven other mounds besides the three I recognized, and I knew from back that there indeed were a lot of cultivars, but shouldn't that mean these things were selectively bred towards the same general directions?

Carrots were orange, peaches were large, bananas were a soft yellow, and most of the grains I knew were there: rice, wheat, corn. There were even the usual brown potatoes—which I'd eaten of before now that I thought about it… huh, it just never occurred to me how weird that should've been. Even the fact that bacon and beef tasted more or less the same should've surprising enough.

"Well," I said, "the food's more or less the same." I picked up a potato and the sensation of it was so natural in my hands. I looked at Loki.

"Demeter," she said.

"Ah, that makes sense." She could've also said magic and I still would've bought it. Because magic was the only logical explanation, rather, that there was nothing logical about it.

"Anything else?" Ruth asked. She was inspecting another stall that had plantains and eggplants and some juicy looking tomatoes.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to find out what kinds of meat they were selling here. "Our streets were also either grey or black, made of tar and concrete? Are you familiar with those?"

Ruth shook her head.

"Concrete is like… liquid stone we can shape into whatever we need, and then after it dries it stays that way. We could make stone buildings without bricks, basically."

Ruth's ears tilted forward. "Why make them out of stone when you can do it like the elves and build them together with the trees?"

"I doubt it's possible to make buildings even larger than Babel without stone and steel."

I picked out a few choice fruits from the easily recognized varieties and passed them to the guy manning the stall. I also pointed at a basket and some more fruits and he nodded, quickly arranging the one I gave him and then some. It didn't take long until I had a squarish wicker basket filled to the brim with fruits. I passed him seven hundred Varis, not bothering with the six hundred and change.

Loki was enjoying the puzzled looks Ruth had.

"Steel?" Ruth asked, scandalized. "In something other than armor and weapons?" She shook her head, eyes wide. "And Gareth said your world didn't have magic."

"Yep, so my being able to _use_ magic at all is plenty cool." And there was also that grimoire sitting in my room. "On that note, Loki, I got to use magic because of the falna?"

She shrugged. "It seems to be connected to you passing the boundary between worlds, from what I saw in your falna."

"Right, but you said it yourself the blessing you grant can only what's already there, so… if it wasn't mine then something else put it there. Some thing, or someone." Either explanation didn't bring me any comfort.

Loki brought her palms up together and made off with some puppy dog eyes. "Do you _really_ wanna go there?"

Ruth tilted her head. "But wouldn't levelling up actually allow some possibility of developing magic?"

Our goddess tilted her hand side to side. "Sort of, kind of, ish, yeah? It may, it may not. Thomas already has magic though, that absorption spell of his, but if he still used the grimoire then it's anybody's guess what's gonna come from that."

I nodded. "Some teleportation magic would be nice, though the implications of it scare me. Spatial portal magic though, that's where it's at." Like Portal the game. Because doing it like Nightcrawler was a recipe for disaster.

And assuming it really was teleportation, then how did the mechanism for said magic work anyway? Was it the instant translation kind as in every atom of me correctly relative to every other neighboring atom simply translated as is even taking into account any possible changes to the world we were on from the greater implications of movement through outer space? Then again, that presupposes that space actually existed here. Or that the world was round and exhibited Newtonian physics like normal matter did.

Because we already had magic, any changes to the standard model would've been a cake walk after that.

Assuming things even still worked according to the standard model, that is.

Loki scrunched one eye closed. "Try not to get your hopes up too much, Tom."

"Life happens." The clerk passed me the basket of fruits complete with a ribbon for good measure. "I've got what I came for." I was holding up a plentiful lot of fruits that would've pooped out my keyboard surfing hands and groceries arms back home, all with one hand. This level up business wasn't just some hyped up thing.

"You two wanna check out the bazaar?" Loki pointed at the utter chaos that was the other side of the street, coming from the organized and civilized produce section. The meats and fish sections were livelier judging from the laughing and chatter, but nothing to the extent of general unrest.

"I'm alright," Ruth said. Two guys just started brawling there and then, and the people around them opened some space to give them a ring.

"I only enjoy violence on tv and videogames, anywhere else and it's not as fun." I moved the basket to my other hand. Carrying it wasn't any harder than a filled grocery bag. "But seeing it a few steps away counts as entertainment."

Loki hung her head.

#

We swung by South Main and went to the very end where Folkvangr was. Loki led us back to Southwest Main from the markets and took us through a few sides streets and easily reached our next destination.

"Wait," Ruth said, "isn't this…"

I pushed on the door bell. A soft chime twinkled off by the marble mansion inside the compound, and the large double doors opened. The same elf butler from before walked out, and I raised the fruit basket a bit. He nodded as he walked over to the gate.

"Yep," Loki said. "Freya's place."

"And Tom's just…"

"Yep," Loki said.

The butler arrived before us and opened the gat with a smile.

Ruth looked him up and down, her tail coiling with a languid grace. "Oh, wow."

"Hi, umm…"

"Serin," he said. "I apologize we haven't been introduced yet the last time you were here." He bowed the slightest bit, his coat tail ruffling with the motion. "Goddess Loki, I presume?"

Loki nodded. "The one and only."

"And I'm Ruth," the cat girl said.

Serin smiled her way. "I can take you to see Ottar."

"It's alright, I just wanted to drop this off." I passed him the basket. "There's a note of thanks attached." Granted a fruits basket really wasn't gonna cut it for helping me get something so precious, but it was a start.

The butler took the offered goodies. "Ottar would be pleased," he said with a bow.

"And that's done for the day."

"But we could stay, right?" Ruth said.

Loki smiled something sinister.

But Serin was more than graceful enough to not close the gates yet.

"Well, if you want to," Loki said. "But you're not really here to see Ottar or anyone else, right?"

Ruth narrowed her eyes at our goddess. "Hrrk…" She hung her head. "Oh, fine."

"Till next time then," Serin said. "It was a pleasure, Thomas, Ruth, goddess Loki." He closed the gates behind him without a sound.

With the rest of the day still ahead of the three of us, we kinda just walked around Orario some more. Ruth and Loki took me around to sightsee. We went to Amor Square which I remembered from when Loki and I ate at that restaurant and I met Freya and Ottar for the first time. There were also the city walls which towered high above the nearest buildings and had enough space between the last structure and it that a decent level two couldn't jump across, or so the stories went.

Loki said Orario had to be strong enough to defend itself from assholes like Ares who'd wanted nothing more than to plunge the world into never ending conflict just because it gave him boners. Yes, the guy was rather successful at culling smaller country type familias, but Orario as the bastion of freedom stood the test of time, through monsters and calamities alike.

But as fancy as the sights were, it all got old after seeing it once.

The architecture here was reminiscent of some older European construction, or at least what looked European. But if you've seen one brick structure then you've seen them all. There's only so many ways to make a wall look interesting after all.

And so we went back home.

Ruth went to the courtyard, and Loki to her wines, and I was left alone with my thoughts.

I threw myself backward into my bed. The cold air from the magic cooler in my room gave my silken covers the same feel as if I were in some luxury hotel. All we needed now was a pool and this place was already better than any hotel I'd ever spent time in.

A trembling shook in the middle of my chest.

The last time I had my status updated, I levelled up. Which also meant this was the longest Loki hadn't been inside my head. After finding out about the things I did, whatever there was between Loki and I… got complicated. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, and now that I wasn't as obsessed with that supposed to be unattainable goal, remembering how I just clung onto my newfound goddess unsettled me.

I was attached to her at the hip, saying things I didn't feel myself saying at the time, always having my mind jumping from one thing to another. It was the sort of living that took everything that came at face value and treated each next thing like rungs on a ladder: just one thing after another to get to the next place.

I barely knew Loki, and yet I wanted to do… some not so polite things to her. Was I really so head over heels? Yes, I liked her, we got along well, but there was also the fact I was never the most popular guy. Then here came a lady who for all intents and purposes returned my affections. Or did she? Was it just how she was? Was there really something there? My concept of affection might not even be the same as an immortal's after all.

She cared, I believed. But would I have dared call this romantic? Affectionate, perhaps. But more? What the hell was I thinking at the time anyway?

I rolled over to my bed, trying to keep the shame of how I acted down. It was embarrassing remembering how I acted at the time.

But more than that, there was the friction between us.

Forgiveness wasn't as easy as I'd wanted it to be. I could understand where she was coming from with what she did. But things that hurt still hurt regardless of how good the intentions were, and to have the lie be exposed by someone else like that didn't help soften the blow.

I was trying to be better, and I could see the effort on her part to give me the space I needed. I could appreciate what she was doing, and in time things should get better between us. Just, not right now.

Which meant I needed to find another way to get home. And I was serious about maybe not needing to choose in the end. If I could gain the magic to cross worlds, then that would be the best. I finally could wield magic after dreaming of it for so long, the thing always limited to the words on pages and vague impressions from dreams was the thing I was best at.

Magic was my strongest ability, and it had always been magic that carried me through the challenges I'd faced before getting here. It was a boon I wasn't saying no to, but it was too sweet a deal given I'd never wielded such a force before. And, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that magic was what brought me here in the first place, so it stood to reason that magic should also be the reason I came back.

Loki said it herself before, my first magic was never mine. That yes, I was sad from being taken from my world but never that sad to be so torn from it. Which sounded like a load of bull, all things considered. There I was busting my ass off and getting into all manners of blood curdling hijinks just to attain a goal I was never supposed to reach, and yet I got it in the end anyway. Sort of.

And at the back of all that was my magic. The magic that gave me the strength to cast fear into monsters much larger and more dangerous than me, and which sustained me and burned down the obstacles standing in the way of what I wanted.

And it was never mine to begin with.

…but, what was it she said again? Wait, wasn't my first magic the one that gave me a connection with her? So why'd Loki say it was Despair? And if Despair was my _first_ magic, then wouldn't that mean Saudade was the one that was _mine_?

Maybe it was hope that drove me to the edge, maybe it was something else, but in that moment, I just knew what I had to do.

I stood from the bed and went over to my backpack, the one I came here with. I opened it and took the bright red grimoire from inside.

The book was heavy in my hands, it's smooth leather covers were supple to the touch. From the spine, I could make out Fels's embossed cat mark. It didn't smell of printed paper, but there was something distinctly other from the book. It was solid to the touch compared to the hardcover ones from back home.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Loki and Lenoa both said people only ever developed three spells, and the latter said Fels didn't know about such either. Would I take her word for it? Maybe. Did I want to give Fels that information I already had three spells? It wasn't worth anything right now, only a novelty at best. It wasn't worth dangling it in front of him just yet.

Lili, Rakta, Narvi, and Daffyd all gained spells after opening theirs, each one varying in effect. Lili's, I didn't know, but Rakta got a healing spell, Narvi got lightning, and Daffyd got something earth. The dwarf with the earth spell made sense, and I guess Rakta with healing was because of what she felt. Narvi with lightning was a little strange, but that's probably because I hadn't really gotten to know her that well yet.

Loki also mentioned the risk of wasting the grimoire, and I can't exactly get a… then again, there's also bargaining with my origins with Fels of course, and if he really was as curious about magic as Lenoa hinted him to be, then this was bound to gain his attention. Was it worth the price of a grimoire though? I couldn't tell. These things easily costed upwards of a hundred million, and it could easily mean the survival of someone when push came to shove.

It stood to reason that Loki, rather, my conscience wouldn't let me keep this for myself should the expedition come and I still didn't have the answer to my question. Could I bear the responsibility of that though? In case someone did indeed die, could I accept the smallest possibility that I was, no matter how small, partly capable of preventing such had someone else gotten this spell?

I also had to take into account that I was not alone in this.

But I also shouldn't forget that these people had their own lives to think of.

Loki could only ask of them to risk their own lives for mine, and even now I was really just attached to them out of sheer luck. Call it friendship, call it mutual benefit, but we all had a desire to fulfill.

Someone knocked on my door and I jumped at the sound.

I put the grimoire back into my bag and walked over to answer. Maybe some of the others had already come back.

I opened the door to a blonde dressed in white, Aiz. Right, she was the one housesitting. It wasn't hard to forget she was here sometimes with how quiet she was, Tiona was the only one who really made her presence felt with how talkative the amazon was.

"Thomas," Aiz said. She tilted her head.

"Yes?"

"Loki said… I should train you." The girl nodded. I guess it kinda made sense since I'd already proven myself capable of holding my own?

"Er, alright, how?"

"Come." She turned and walked towards the stairs. "Bring your sword."

Oyvey. I went back into my room and got my sword as told. It gave me something else to do besides think, and it was a welcome distraction.

We got down a moment after.

Aiz stood in the courtyard with her sword at her hip, and Loki was by her window with a book and glass of wine in hand. There were a few more who came back from the Dungeons, some of them strewn about in the gardens and visible from inside the living room of the main castle. Lili was right next to me, she too had her sword.

"Hey, Lili."

"Hi Tom." She was covered in scratches and her clothes were dirtied and cut up here and there.

"How was the Dungeon?"

"They took Li-… me to the fifth floor to fight war shadows." She sighed.

Aiz unsheathed her blade and gave it to Riine who was seated by the benches. She swung her sheath about, the dull blue thing cutting through the air with sharp whistles.

"Why."

"L— I don't know either."

"Draw your swords," Aiz said.

#

Lili and I were nursing some battered limbs and a few bruises come dinner time.

Gareth and the other executives hadn't returned yet, but most of the level two and three groups already had. In hindsight, I really should've taken up Fels's offer to give me that pair of crystals for communication. Sure, it overlapped with my powers, but that could go where I couldn't. However, it did carry the risk of it having more functions than our supposed friend explained, hence why my crystal sat at the bottom of one of my drawers inside of a thick jewelry box filled with cotton.

I probably couldn't stop it from transmitting, but I could prevent it from getting information whenever it wanted.

The following day, everyone did the same and went to the Dungeon to do what they could before the expedition, and thankfully Ruth and a couple other level twos stayed so we could go together. I just needed to pick up my gear and Welf, I guess. And it went without saying we were another day closer to the expedition, and that bloody red book was another day closer from leaving my grasp.

Cynthia and Frank, a female elf and a male boaz respectively were with us to make our group more stable, while the people they were originally with bolstered another group of level threes. Cynthia specialized in magic bombardment and carried a short staff and buckler, while Frank was a more traditional sword and shield guy. Since we weren't planning on getting into too much trouble, Cynthia volunteered to cut the monsters up so long as Frank was the one to carry the bags.

Too bad Lili couldn't really come with us yet, but not everyone could have cheat skills and stuff.

The goal for today was to hunt for materials in the middle floors and stock up. Loki saw our group off and we passed by Welf's workshop to pick up my stuff and him, and then it was off to the Dungeon.

We went straight for the seventeenth floor and just camped there until our bags were two-thirds of the way full before coming back up. Welf was pushing a little further forward now that Frank had our backs covered, and the guy could better focus on raking in the exilia. Loki told me she had to make a deal with Hephaestus to get me my end game armors, and that was to help her little smith level up. An eye for an eye, it seemed. But the cost wasn't too bad since it helped convince Tsubaki to make my stuff, and not to mention helped deepen our alliance with the smithing god.

But getting an Aegis like Bete's was gonna need another favor which Loki wasn't too comfortable with owing. And I could respect that.

When our bags reached the predetermined point, we went back up to deposit the goods at Cabeiri's hut. With four level twos, the trip down and up took much shorter than when Ruth, Welf, and I did it ourselves. It also helped that we didn't see any distractions along the way. We had enough time for another dive, but Welf opted out since he was already pooped from the run. Which was understandable since he'd only ever reached the ninth floor on his own until yesterday, and then to suddenly find himself fighting for his life in the seventeenth floor.

And perhaps the Lygerfang… fangs he was lugging around in his bag was another reason. He landed the killing blow on a few of them and got some drops like he hoped, even got some minotaur horns to boot. The excitement wasn't that easy to pick out from his ragged breathing.

Also, it was perhaps to our luck that Bell showed up in front of Welf's workshop alone and without Helun watching him.

"Thomas! Welf!" the boy waved as we neared the hut. "And Ruth as well!" The cat girl wasn't too happy with seeing Bell again, but she was professional enough to not let that get in the way.

"Hey Bell," I said. I presented our two other party members. "This here's Cynthia and Frank, they're also from our familia."

The boy shook their hands, blushing a bit at the contact with Cynthia. "A pleasure to meet you both."

A chill went down my spine. Knowing Freya, Helun couldn't have been far behind. I didn't need some written missive to get the message.

We said our goodbyes then and Welf got about to getting Bell's measurements, so the smith could process the Salamander Hide.

Once we were out of earshot, Ruth and I spread the warning to the two.

"I never knew goddess Freya was like that," Cynthia said with an uneasy smile.

"She's related to goddess Loki," Frank pointed out. "This shouldn't be a surprise."

All four of us nodded to that as we made our way back into the Dungeon.

Since we weren't babysitting a level one anymore, and it was hypocritical of me to say that, we were free to run all the way down to the seventeenth and make our way up instead of having to take our time going down. Paying for expedition gear easily racked up the expenses, and it wasn't like we were only stocking up on weapons. Picking up potions ingredients was more challenging than getting weapon materials since the latter usually needed monster drops while the former usually needed some special conditions.

Most of the potions ingredients could be collected in the Tree Labyrinth area, or floors nineteen through twenty-four, but getting even the easiest plant was dependent on luck. The most lucrative ingredient of them all were the pearl fruits of the twenty-fourth floor, with each little berry fetching a price of fifty thousand Varis a piece. It didn't sound like much, but it took something like two to four of those to make one elixir depending on how good the person making the medicine was.

There were also other factors involved such as what catalysts were added, but I didn't really see any more since the actual recipes weren't written down in the Dungeon guide book I found in the archives.

To get those materials though, it took an honest effort that our party of level twos couldn't afford.

The day ended just like that, and the following one ended just the same.

We were approaching the expedition one day at a time, and things weren't getting any easier on keeping that grimoire out of my head.

I still hadn't gotten my status updated yet either.

#

The sun was already high in the sky when I got around to showing up at Welf's to pick up my armor. With such good hauls over the last few days, Ruth and some of the others opted to take a break from entering the Dungeon for a while to take it easy. They were pushing themselves hard over the last few days, so them and a few of the less extreme members were back home. Which meant I had a wider range of people to pick from to go with.

It didn't take long to get myself attached to a sizable group of level threes and fours bound for the twenty-something floors to try their hand at gathering potions ingredients.

I knocked on the heavy wooden door.

"Come in," Welf answered.

I entered and saw Bell wearing a thick reddish orange coat, with his armor pieces much thicker than last time. It was still the same general shape I'd seen on him before, but Welf had apparently worked on them over the time I last saw the kid.

"Hi Thomas." Bell smiled my way.

"Hi Bell, Welf." Welf was seated on a grindstone mechanism powered by a magic stone with an off-white dagger in his hands. "I'm here to pick up the usual, and we're heading to the twenty-something floors, anything you want?"

The smith's focus didn't leave his work. "Any large fangs or hides would be nice." He lifted the blade from the grinder and passed it to Bell.

Who gave it a few quick swings. Bell nodded and flipped the knife over a few times. "It's perfect."

"Good," Welf said. He stood up and wiped the dust off his hands with a towel, before walking over to a table and removing the cloth covering a pile of stuff underneath. My armor was there, the padded textile straps reinforced with chain mail while the front piece was now a bare metal plate with the underside padded. There were also some greaves and vambraces of the same general design, plates over padded textile together with the armor. "I hope you don't mind the changes I made."

I walked over to the table, while Bell looked on from beside me. I took a vambrace and wore it over my forearm and tightened the straps to a snug and solid fit. I shook my hand a few times and the thing didn't impede my movements, nor did it make it feel awkward. The padding kept a tight profile, while the thick and sturdy plate lent a hefty feel. "This is nice."

It fit much better than Gareth's stuff, and clanked a lot less too.

Bell showed me his vambrace that had the same general design incorporated, though the plates on his were thinner. "Welf said you wouldn't mind if he used your design, but I still wanted to ask for your permission."

I shook my head. "It was my idea, but it was Welf who made it possible." I didn't waste time with wearing the rest of the pieces, and the main chest piece fit like a glove. "Think of it as me paying him instead to make me stuff like this."

The boy rubbed his chin. "I see, then if I get any ideas too I'll be sure to tell you, Welf. And I'll work hard to get some good materials like Thomas does." His smile was the sort that said anything was possible. And with Helun there, it wasn't really a boast but more of a promise.

"You can do it," I said. Clearly Freya wanted Bell moving faster, if she were to enable him like this. A few words to spur him on hopefully would help.

"I'll catch up to you soon enough," Bell said.

I believed him. "I know you will, but I won't be losing either."

"And I'll be sure to be there to make you two the best stuff," Welf said with a laugh. "I'm sure Tsubaki won't mind me making a few things for you if it means I can get some deeper floor materials?" The sly grin he had said all I needed to see.

"Sure," I said. There was still more to Welf I was yet to learn, and this magic sword business was definitely that thing Tsubaki wanted me to mind. Maybe I should come with them for a while? Tomorrow, perhaps? It would help Welf gain exilia, but there no easy excuses that would benefit Bell. If any, it would let him go a little deeper and he could also get some more drops with my skill… so it was still a win, probably. Loki would find out later anyway, and let's just say this was my way of sending a few more thanks to Freya and Hephaestus. "Also, do you three want to go down the Dungeon together sometime? Tomorrow, maybe? I'll take you to twentieth floors."

Bell's eyes shone, and the glint in Welf's was unmistakable.

"This guy's a loot magnet, Bell!" he said. "We'll strike gold if we stick with him!"

"Then count me in!"

The hard part was getting everyone else and Loki to agree to this.

I left the two behind to discuss whatever else they had going on between them and went back home to face my fears. I greeted the others waiting by the courtyard, our little group of seven plus me.

Cadfael and Nicolle were our level fours, a male dwarf and a female runarl. Cadfael used a Warhammer minus the pick end like I did, and Nicolle used a long sword. The rest of them were level threes. Helki used a pair of short swords like Tione, and was an amazon too; Lara was an elf who carried a long staff and had a wind spell, she came from the same village as Alicia; Eli was a boaz who used the classic arming sword and kite shield like Frank; Claire was part of that impromptu mage bombardment team I put together when we were getting Lili from the Soma familia, she had a short staff with her; and last was Aaron who used a spear, he was a tanuki.

I excused myself real quick and went up to my room to pick up my harness and weapons, and the replacement buckler Tsubaki handed me when I asked her for one. The last time I went that deep, shit hit the fans and I'd lost the first one. My bag was calling for me, but I tore away and went back down the stairs.

I went up to the group, they already had their gear and bags ready.

Cadfael stood up from the couch. "Shall we?"

#

We bought ourselves some potions using our own money, and thanks to all those farming runs I'd been going on with Ruth and the others I had more than enough to buy myself a few bottles. Aiz gave me an elixir before we left and told me to always keep it close. Everyone had an emergency bottle like the one she gave me, and it was the first time I was ever given one in the same capacity as the others.

After all, I was finally pulling my own weight as opposed to just riding on Loki's good graces.

I also bought for me two mind potions and another four stamina potions. I could use and abuse my magic enough to keep it going for a while, and I'd noticed stamina was my bigger problem during longer runs. Yes, my Endurance grew the longer I fought, but to go that low, I'd need to make sure I kept myself in the frontlines to benefit from my skill. I normally wouldn't be able to sustain myself down there, but the danger was part and parcel with what I needed to accomplish.

I was still taking risks, but this time with full clarity and understanding of the risks involved.

We arrived in the Dungeon and I kept at the front line with Eli and Aaron, I was wielding my buckler and pick and block and disabling monsters together with Eli while Aaron finished them off. The three of us stood at the front while Cadfael guarded the rear by himself. Things were smooth sailing from the first through twelfth floors like always, and the pressure only started on the thirteenth when the hellhounds started coming.

Hellhounds, almiraj, and dungeon worms plagued our group more often than when I was here with Ruth and the others, and it stood to reason the Dungeon amped up its spawn rates the more people there were in a party. What wasn't a nice thought though was how our expedition would see more than half of the Loki familia all diving at the same time, what sort of chaos would ensue then?

Minotaurs began spawning in the fifteenth floor, and when they came in I opted to ignite myself and passed my buckler to Helki who took my place to keep the line. My job now was to ignite as many as I could to hamper the monsters' advance and disable, always moving but never straying to make sure I didn't fall for any traps. Claire made liberal use of her short chant fire spell and cleared the front every now and then, while Nicolle joined Cadfael in actively fighting at the rear. Lara, if we were lucky, wouldn't need to fire any major spells at all, but she kept her staff ready anyway.

I only needed my first stamina potion after passing the sixteenth floor. Spending time with level threes gave that much of a noticeable difference since I wasn't as overwhelmed as I was with Ruth and the others.

We reached the seventeenth floor and prepared for the worst but were pleased the Goliath hadn't shown up. Perhaps Aiz or Finn's group took care of it before or maybe some other familia or team did. The monster rex spawned every two weeks, and it made for bad business with the adventurers who called Rivira their home. Sure, it got destroyed and people died, but life went on, and it wasn't as surprising when I saw the rogue town already standing after just a few days of the tragedy.

There was no reason for us to stay, though we did exchange the drop loot we picked up along the way for some more potions. Butcher made it inevitable that I would always gain drops, but it seemed it only worked on monsters I landed the killing blow on. It wasn't a hundred percent change, but almost one in every seven monsters gave its drop as opposed pure chance. With this in mind though, then our money problems should be better managed in the future.

My first step into the glowing moss-ridden nineteenth floor was punctuated by a bugbear charging me from the front, which I bashed into the ground with my buckler wreathed in black flames. Then I caved its head in with my hammer.

A few days ago these things were still giving me so much trouble, but now, I could hold my own. But only after making sure I was fighting long enough, that was the only thing that sucked about my skills. I couldn't keep the buffs I built up over time, and the few spikes of strength I displayed was triggered by my retaliating. As for how it distinguished what was vengeance and what was my own attack though, I didn't know. Magic.

Light bore down from above as I dodged the overhead strike of a lizard man whose flower buckler I smashed away with my hammer before kicking it in the shin and setting the whole monster on fire. My magic spread much faster now after levelling up, but proccing its incapacitating effect was much harder. Which was both good and bad, good because it meant I wasn't in as much danger anymore since my other skill wasn't boosting my magic as much anymore, and bad because of the same reason.

We fought through the nineteenth floor and reached the twentieth. The giant trees whose canopies reached far up into the ceiling concealed whatever there was above.

I downed my first magic potion when the faintest signs of a headache kicked in. It was a little concerning to need to use one so early into things, but I had been using Despair a lot and couldn't find any good chances to use Saudade fighting so close to each other. It was a disadvantage I couldn't overcome when I was fighting with people at the same level of ability since they couldn't spare me the space I needed to launch my wider attacks. It wasn't too smart either to sic me on these middle level monsters without full confidence my allies could pull my ass out of any fire.

It was the difference between fighting as part of a group and fighting with an escort. Gareth spoiled me too much, but it was only thanks to his power leveling that I could stand and complain here at the twentieth floor without relying on him specifically.

We ran through the picturesque floor.

Firebirds, fuck those things, kept flying in and out and it was too much trouble to have me and the normal vanguard be the ones to take them out so we had Lara blast the damnable things into oblivion after a few quick chants. And since they spawned the fastest in the twentieth, we hightailed it down to the twenty-first to where the monsters were more dangerous but weren't as annoying as these god-awful birds.

This floor was the closest to a normal forest save for the trees in different colors, some whose bark and trees didn't match and the foliage was just as chaotic in their color schemes. It was a pleasant view, that is, until the monsters started running in from all directions.

Sword stags were the first freaks out for blood and their metallic antlers proved troublesome with how fast they were banging their heads. Had I not been scrambling from keeping these damned freaks from cutting off my fingers I would've been laughing at how stupid they looked, but they were damned effective at what they did. It was only thanks to my being covered in magical flames that made me brave enough to try and touch them the slightest, after which their headbanging would slow enough for me to get some stabs in.

"I hate these things so much," Eli said. He bashed a stag in the face which Aaron ran through the head with.

"They look so stupid!" Aaron added.

"Complain later," Helki said. She at least had my buckler to protect herself with, while I had to make do with blocking these monster blades with a blade and hammer.

The twenty-second floor couldn't have come sooner, then I remembered why I didn't like this floor—the giant mantises.

When we came out of the passage we were immediately swarmed by the large green sword wielding insects and had to fight them on the uneven footing of dense enough to look like ground shrubberies. The gosh darn things were worse than the sword stags in that they were more calculating in their strikes, and they never got a chance to do so last time but apparently these things could also fly. So yeah, flying sword wielding insects.

Not the best hook for a tour, so Lara was again called in to blast our way through into the twenty-third floor.

When we came out into the red-filled cave-like floor, the full majesty of the so-called Hive was revealed once more. Bee or wasp nests littered the skyline of the floor while glowing red mushrooms of varying sizes provided all the light there was. Color didn't exist here save for bloody red, and it was gonna be a bitch since we needed to get tree barks of different colors.

The twenty-third and twenty-fourth floors contained about seventy percent of all the ingredients needed to brew the so-far known potions, ten percent came from the higher floors and didn't matter as much, while the final twenty was found much deeper. However, the stuff from here and one floor down was enough to brew high potions, and that's what mattered. High potions were the real sellers in pharmacy type familias since only Dian Cecht could afford to pay for the ingredients of the elixir series.

Everyone else had to make do with second-best.

We stopped to catch our breath at the passageway and I took another stamina potion. Here was where we were going to stay the longest and the plan after was to run back up as fast as we could. Leaving the twenty-third floor with the ingredients came with the unfortunate side effect of triggering the closest monster nest to home in on the goodies.

"Moment of truth, people, look alive," Cadfael said with a laugh. He put down his bag and took out a magic stone lamp shaped like a flashlight. He turned it on, and it was as I thought. A beam of light came from it and illuminated the trees nearest to us, and lo and behold, red, yellow, white, black, and a host of other colors. "No time to lose, you lot, we can't let Thomas rest for too long."

The main reason why they wanted me with them was because of my magic. I was to serve as the rear guard on our flight back to the surface. Eli, Aaron, Lara, everyone took out a pair of gloves and got to work in pairs, one to provide the light and the bag, the other to scrape off the bark.

Filling up our bags didn't take much effort either, and the few monsters that strayed our way I engaged to make sure my buff kept going. Nicole was to stay with me and make sure nothing stood in my way, while Cadfael was to carry Lara and allow her to chant without distractions to thin the monsters chasing us once we started. Claire was our main forward artillery, who was to support our vanguard Eli, Helki, and Aaron.

Greed and time were the biggest things standing in our way, and the Dungeon came to a very close second. How much we carried back would be proportional to the response chasing after us, and how fast we could make it up to the eighteenth floor was the real crux of the mission. Should everything go well, and it was rather inevitable that it wouldn't, the next thing we had to deal with was how badly the Dungeon would react.

We filled seven bags full of each colored bark: white, yellow, red, blue, purple, green, and black. The colors corresponded to the effect they had in solution, white was for health recovery, yellow for mind, red for strength boosting, blue for endurance, purple for dexterity, green for agility, and black for magic. They were also pretty effective even on their own if you could get over how horrible they tasted.

We moved to the start of the passage up the twenty-second floor.

"Alright," Cadfael said.

We were all standing in formation ready to make a break for the eighteenth floor. He had a few pieces of bark in hand. I couldn't see their colors, but I remembered we took some extra pieces for agility, and another few pieces for magic.

"Thomas, don't eat the bark just yet," he said.

Cadfael then passed the bark from his hand, then passed us three magic users an extra piece each.

"The moment you eat these, the effects will only last for so long so make it count. We won't stop for any detours and make it to the eighteenth floor and deal with anything we pull up from the passage there."

The problem with trying to stop the retaliation from the passage up to the twenty-second floor was that it was too close to the other nests, while the problem with stopping the monsters at the passage up the twenty-first floor was the monsters of the twenty-second. Sword Mantises were bad news for any defense. It was the same argument for the passage up the twentieth and nineteenth floor, and the only haven was the eighteenth.

And by then, some of the monsters chasing us would've already lost some interest, the only issue being the monsters we pulled possibly giving other adventurers problems. We didn't have any plans of pass parading, but it couldn't be helped if some broke away. It was rather rare to run into another party so deep down here though, since familias strong enough to reach this place could be counted on the fingers and toes.

"Lara," Cadfael said.

The elf walked up to him with her staff, and he picked her up in a dead man carry. Lara didn't fuss about her situation, and kept her staff pointed behind us.

"Ready," Cadfael said. "Begin chanting."

Lara ate the bark in her hand and swallowed, a grimace painting her face for the shortest time before a magic circle of green light appeared underneath Cadfael and the tip of Lara's staff began glowing white.

" _I pray to the ever free wind, the ancient tongue of the ages, grant me the voice of the forest and sing a hymn of sorrow for the invaders. Let a chorus of blades carry the vengeance of our scorned lands, smother the flames and scatter the enemy. Our heritage of a thousand generations sing in unison with the wrath of nature, the sun shall rise once more on our forests_."

"Eli," Cadfael said.

And the guy took one step onto the passage, and the twenty-third floor became quiet, before the noises came full force and approaching our location fast. In the distance, the nearest nests sent out a swarm of insects in a great flow, enough for the wing beats and various bodies to blend together into a wave of bodies.

"Eat," Cadfael said, and as one we all ate the rest of the bark.

The taste was like the distilled essence of bitter gourd and burnt, and I had to get the help of a swig of water to get it all down. Its effects though were immediate, and I felt a burning spring from my gut as my limbs lightened to the point of feeling like feathers.

"Run!"

The ground exploded behind us as we tore at our footholds and shot forward through the passage, with Lara's staff overpowering the red mushrooms in brightness. The first insects reached the entrance, and Cadfael slowed down to take the rearmost position.

"Levantes Aureo!"

Wind roared behind us and blasted the narrow passageway with gold winds, ash following close behind where it blew. I didn't bother anymore with seeing the aftermath with my eyes since we couldn't afford to dilly dally any longer.

The passage opened up into a swarm of mantises.

" _My heart resonates, heat untold bursts forth, the beat of my blood strikes through._ " Claire jumped into the air with her short staff held out. "Crimson Overdrive!"

A pillar of flames engulfed the mantises while Eli, Aaron, and Helki wasted no time with pushing the monsters away. We weren't aiming on ending the fight here, just enough to make enough space between us and the ones chasing us.

Monsters spawned left and right but we left them all behind us and kept going with me wreathed in black flames all the way until we reached the eighteenth floor. And from there we stood our ground and funneled the monsters through the passage way with only Eli as the rear guard and everyone else with a melee weapon fighting keeping the monsters back through sheer grit.

The horde eventually thinned, and our day in the Dungeon eventually came to a close.

#

Tired and covered in wounds, we ended up having to use an elixir when a mantis chased us all the way up to the eighteenth floor and stabbed Cadfael through the gut. It was a good thing we had enough on hand with us, but it could've easily been anyone else. Leveling up made us harder to kill, but it didn't mean we were invincible.

We went to the Dian Cecht familia home, and once we were sure Cadfael didn't suffer any lasting injuries did we only let Airmid know we'd gotten the Loki familia's share of ingredients for our expedition orders. There was more than normal included given our successful run, and perhaps things could've gone so much better had any of the executives been the one to do it, but we at least accomplished something worth talking about. It was a given how Aiz and others could do much more than we could, but they were still just a handful compared to the rest of the familia.

The walk back to Twilight Manor had me holding my head up high despite the shame.

I couldn't apologize for being weak, because I wasn't. Not anymore.

Yes, I wasn't as strong as I wanted to be yet. Yes, I could hold my own to some extent, but it wasn't the kind of strong that could stand alone at the very front like Aiz or Finn could. I understood full well my own limitations, but my powers had to mean something. Why else would they be so geared towards fighting in the front lines otherwise? Yes, it was part because that's what I'd been doing all this while, but at the end of the day, responsibility was ultimately mine.

I couldn't bear being so powerless in the face of adversity.

But to come into this blindly would only endanger the people around me more. Faster and stronger and tougher than everyone else, I needed much more. And I already had the means within my reach.

I went up my room and took the grimoire out of my bag.

No, I wasn't alone. But, it also meant I had that much more to protect.

No, I wasn't running into my problems without thinking anymore. But, that also meant the gravity of my situation made that much more of an impact.

The longer this grimoire sat unused, the longer some of my questions remained unanswered. How far was my falna and my bullshit of a status going to take me? How hard could I milk it for unprecedented gains? How fast could it allow me to reach my goal?

At the end of the day, I could only blame myself for the lack of progress.

I needed to act.

But I shouldn't be stupid about it.

Loki? Are you there?

 _Yeah, Tom?_

Do you mind updating my status?

 _Sure, come on up to my room._

I made my way to Loki's room with the grimoire in hand. I knocked on her door.

"Tom?" she said from behind the door. "Come in."

I opened the knob to Loki with a few pieces of parchment in hand, and a host of books strewn across her desk and floor and bed.

"Err, was this a bad time?"

Her eyes went down to my hands. "Not for me, no." She met my eyes. "And is it for you?"

No more lies, Tom. "Partly, I've had a lot on my mind."

"It's faster if I update your status first, we can talk after that?"

She could read through me if we did, and it would expose all my thoughts to her from the past few days. Hiding things wasn't going to solve anything and keeping up this bad air between us was only hurting the cause. I needed to be better than that.

"Just a heads up," I said, taking off my shirt. "The last few days have been a little much."

Loki ruffled my hair. "You've always been a handful, Tom. And you're still mine despite that."

#

 **Level 2**

Strength = I 0 - I 39

Endurance = I 0 - I 53

Dexterity = I 0 - I 69

Agility = I 0 - I 33

Magic = I 0 - I 72

Madness Spectrum = H

Tranquil Intervention = H

World Walker = H

Fated Actor = H

Butcher = I

 **Magic**

 _Answered Prayer_

Chantless Magic

 _Despair_

"Madness"

 _Saudade_

"Taken from the peace of home / I now stand beyond the veil / The aberrant demands reparation"

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

Enabler = Increases magic by an exceptional amount in a pinch and causes magic damage to siphon life force.

Mania = Increases endurance the longer one stays in battle and gradually wears off after.

Lævateinn = Adds a fire element to all attack magics.

Vindicta = Momentarily increases strength when retaliating against an attacker, the higher the damage received, the stronger the effect.

#

 _A tiny girl no larger than a child wielded a sword an innocent like her had no business of holding. Her eyes were fierce and held none of the brightness of youth. Her dress was in tatters, the metal plates attached to the hem of her skirt were broken and cracked, while her sword wreathed in blood red light and wind churned with the wailing of a tortured cry._

#

We were on top of her bed, Loki got off me and passed me back my shirt.

"That was… a lot to take in." She was scratching her head. "Thank you for coming to me first, at least." Loki took a deep breath. "You want to use the grimoire and see if it could give you one more magic. Well, that's why I gave it to you in the first place, Tom. I just wanted you to wait until we had more evidence, so we could be more successful."

I sat up and grit my teeth. "No," I said. "I was going to give it back." The book weighed on my mind so badly it was driving me to thinking there was a quick fix to my problems. "It's better I focus instead of what I already had, you said it yourself, right? I was improving too fast for my own good, and making any changes to that by forcing something into me might instead invalidate whatever's acting on my falna."

Loki's eyebrows scrunched together. "Are you sure? We might not get another grimoire again for some time."

"I'm not counting on one, just because I had three magics didn't already mean _my_ three slots were up."

"You're banking on uncertainty." She shook her head. "What are you really thinking about Tom?"

I took a deep breath. "That I can't keep running away from whatever it is I have to do."

Loki gave me a hug

And I hugged her back. We weren't really together or anything, but she cared. And that was something I was sure of.

She rubbed my back. "About that thing… Tom," she said. "You and me and all that…"

"Hmm, yeah, I've got commitment issues."

"So?" She pulled away. Loki was smirking. "I'm immortal, that doesn't really bother me."

"Hey, I've got feelings too." I could feel the heat creep up my cheeks.

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Haven't we already made up? Now where's the kiss?"

Hah, shit. Err, no. Not the time for this. "I should go."

I picked up my shirt and ran out of her room.

#

Falna Notes:

 **Skills**

Madness Spectrum = Grants magic affinity and empowers the user's status, increases magic damage received, requirements for recognition of feats, and susceptibility to mental status effects.

Tranquil Intervention = Increases resistance against mental status effects

World Walker = Increases magic parameters

Fated Actor = Promotes growth of basic abilities

Butcher = Increases abilities and item drop rate when attacking monsters the user has gained exilia from before.

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = Allows two-way communication with one's patron god or goddess with Mind consumption based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion.

Saudade = An area of effect drain spell that takes the magic and life force contained in all within range and transfers it to the user. Targets stronger than the user are able to resist having their magic and life stolen. Has a five-meter radius, and a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion.


	16. Vol 2 Chapter 3

**Volume 2**

 **Chapter 3**

Soft sunlight poured in from the windows and warmed up the tables and chairs where they landed while the savory smell of bacon filled the hall. Breakfast was still the quiet affair of the last few days with how few people there were with almost half the seats unfilled, but it was homey nonetheless. Ruth was sitting with Claire and the other girls, while Cadfael and the other dwarfs sat together and ate with much gusto. There was a bowl of fried potatoes between the burly men that the cooks had to refill every now and then.

Lili was chatting away with Riine and the rest of their usual team, and Aiz was nibbling on some potato crunchy croquettes I could hear from all the way at the other end of the executive table. My hearing had gotten loads bette5r since levelling up, but it also annoyed me to no end now that I could hear how… lacking the quality of the music on my phone was. Even after fiddling with the equalizer for most of the night, the sound was still muddled even through my headphones, granted they weren't that high end in the first place.

"Tom, this is a stupid idea." Loki was pointing at me with her fork, one half-eaten sausage still skewered through. "I get you want to learn what has Freya so interested in that Bell kid, but do you _really_ want to stick your hand into that cookie jar?" She ate the rest of it.

I cut myself a slice from the pancakes in front of me and ate the sumptuous bite. I'd been eating healthy lately anyway, so I figured I could afford a little indulgence. "You have a point, but this has to count for something. Why else would the most powerful"—Loki glared at me—"lady in all of Orario take notice of a pretty badass kid."

My goddess groaned. "Ugh, where's Finn when I need him." Loki wolfed down her cream of garlic soup and sponged the rest of it with her biscuit.

"Admit it, you're curious too." I poked her button nose, it was a little cold to the touch and soft as hell. Her cheeks looked even softer, but that was a temptation for another time.

Loki narrowed her eyes at me. "Damn right I am." She stole the slice of pancake I lathered a hearty dose of butter to.

I sighed and sliced another portion for myself, but her fork was hovering too near the treasured horde. I could still hear the cooks in the kitchen, maybe if I chanced it I could put in another order of pancakes before they left. "The kid was tearing through the tenth floor enough to make a carpet of ash behind him, sure he had one of Freya's level fives guarding his butt, but just damn."

"You said… Bell?"

Loki jumped in her seat and broke into a coughing fit.

It was all too sudden how the blonde appeared in front of us when she was all the way at the other end of the table, I couldn't even see her move, much less react to what she did. Good thing my reflexes were fast enough to prevent me from freaking out like Loki.

I rubbed Loki's back and was relieved she wasn't choking. "Yeah, that white-haired kid with the red eyes?"

Aiz nodded with a fervor, and the intensity behind her eyes made me question just what the hell I'd gotten myself into. "I'll come with you," she said without pause.

"Eh? You're interested in Bell too?"

"I… want to compensate him."

Loki face palmed. "I think you meant to say, make it up to him. You don't have to though."

Aiz shook her head. "Should."

"And who's gonna watch the house?" Loki asked with a frown.

The blonde pursed her lips.

Loki sneered.

Aiz puffed her cheek.

I stabbed a piece of pancake and wafted it in front of our goddess's nose. She took the bait. "It's just one day, Loki, what could possib—"

She shoved her hands all up my face, her fox eyes opened wide. "Don't. Ever. Tempt. Fate." Loki removed her hands slowly. "Never screw with luck when you're in the presence of a trickster god. At all."

Her hands smelled like bacon and maple syrup, dainty and warm. "Noted."

Loki pinched my cheeks.

Aiz had apparently already moved her food over to my and Loki's side of the table. "For what happened… at the bar."

It was a chore to listen to Aiz talk at times, but she was a level six and took things too seriously. I couldn't jab at her like I would with Gareth, since where the dwarf would laugh and slap me on the back while properly adjusting his strength Aiz might just end up skewering me. She probably wouldn't, but who could tell behind those dead fish eyes of hers. And now she was staring at me with all the fury of a curious cat. The large kind with fangs. "I have no problems with taking you with me, in fact, I can't really stop you either."

Loki face palmed. "Don't encourage her."

"We could actually go pretty deep with her watching our backs." Heck, I might be able to make good on taking them down to the twentieth floor.

Aiz nodded. "Mmm."

Loki clasped her hands and breathed deep. "Tom, say that again. Slower this time, and really think about what you're doing."

I set down my cutlery. "We could have Aiz watch… our… backs… Wow, what the hell was I thinking?"

"Exactly."

"She's right in front of you!" Lili said from the other table. Her face was still full of crumbs from her croquettes, while Riine was straining at keeping the girl from flying off her seat.

The blonde sitting next to us pouted. "Mean."

"I'm not wrong though."

And not a single person disagreed in the dining hall.

#

And so it was that Aiz accompanied me to Welf's workshop where we all agreed to meet at beforehand. Sorta. It was more a passing thought at the time, but I did say to meet tomorrow and I did also say so here, so it stood to reason. I hoped. Eh, not like I was pressed for time anyway.

I knocked on the door.

"Come in," Welf said from inside.

I looked back at Aiz. She nodded. As to why, I didn't know. I opened the door and the usual well-organized smithy welcomed us. Nothing much changed from the clean floors to the organized loot and tools, save for the orc hides Ruth and I dumped on him before were all gone now. That probably meant something good. I also saw my armor hanging from one of the hooks, the straps on it thicker than before, but the main front plate was repaired and unchanged.

"We're further in, Tom." Welf wasn't forging if the lack of metal on metal ringing was any indicator.

Aiz came in after me and took in the sights of the forge. She wasn't one for making small talk while walking, so the trip to here was a little awkward and made more so by the people who kept staring at us walking side by side. It also didn't help that she was decked out in her gear and what passed for armor with her while I only had the usual clothes I wore under my armor. The sword princess was a well-advertised personality whom everyone knew was a level six now, and then came this guy who was walking next to her and was armored even less.

Yeah, it didn't do jack shit for staying inconspicuous.

"Good morning Thomas," a bright voice said from further in. Footsteps approached. "Welf just finished my co—!" Bell flinched and landed on his ass. "W-what!?"

Yeah, I guess Aiz did have an aura like that. "Hey Bell," I greeted. His Salamander Hide coat blended with the muted colors of the forge, the earthy wooden tones highlighting the magnificent material. His greaves and vambraces had fresh dents that weren't there yesterday, and I heard the faint scraping of material against an abrasive. I walked up to him to help the guy up.

"A-aiz Wallenstein?!" Bell went red all the way up to his ears and scrambled backward on his hands when I approached.

Either he had a crush on her or he didn't do too well with famous people.

"Mmm." Aiz nodded, her expression still the same stoic blank. "You… are Bell?"

Bell straightened up. "Y-yes!"

Welf walked in on the scene wearing a thick leather coat and a chest piece that looked like mine underneath but with thicker plates. He already had his great sword with him, and at least he had a helmet on this time. It looked like one of those Roman legionnaire helmets without the plume of red and was made in the same style as my armor, a padded textile interior with the important bits protected by solid plates. He had another helmet in hand. "Isn't that the Sword Princess?"

"Yeah, I asked for some help with keeping you two safe." I was gonna hate myself for this, but it needed asking. "And Bell, is Helun coming with us later? It would help a lot if she could support us down there." Shit-sicles. Here I was, asking for a level five to be our supporter. I swear that lady would have my balls on a silver platter if she could help it.

"S-s-she will be." Bell couldn't look me or Aiz in the eyes.

Welf tossed him a helmet, it hit the kid square on the shoulders and clanged against the floor. "Uh, Bell?"

The kid picked up the helmet and dusted it off. "I have it."

Our smith friend then reached up for a shelf and pulled down another helmet before tossing it to me. Like my armor, this helmet had a reddish tinge to the metal from all the killer ant shells I passed him, and the white padding was likely needle rabbit. I put on the piece and it fit my head like a second thicker skin. "The fit is surprisingly good."

Welf puffed his chest out. "Tsubaki passed me a template that was the same size as your head."

I shrugged. If it made things easier for him, then it'd probably make things easier on her too. Speaking of Tsubaki, Gareth was yet to return from his adventure with Finn and the others, so my armor wouldn't debut until much later. If it could make it on time for the expedition, that is. We were nearing the start date which was scheduled in two week's time, and if all else failed then we'd just get me some ready-made pieces Tsubaki greenlighted. "Everyone all set?"

"Not quite yet." Welf passed Bell another knife, this one the same general off-white but with streaks of yellow mixed in.

"Thank you," Bell said with a smile. He lifted his coat and sheathed it by his right boot, while the knife from yesterday was sheathed on his left thigh. On his right thigh, a longer handle poked out. It was a longer knife than the two others, and I guess this was closer to a short sword. I couldn't make out the material of it save for the handle being a muted grey.

"Aren't you well armed."

Bell turned to my direction and gone was the calm from when he received his new weapon from Welf, replaced instead with the jittery mess of a teenager in puberty. Which he probably was. His red eyes kept darting between me, Aiz, and the floor and ceiling not necessarily in that order. "I-I was told by someone that it was better to have more and find it unused then to want and have none." He scratched his head. "A-and I can't keep relying on what my goddess gave me, I need to pull my own weight too." His hand drifted to the small of his back, and I guess he maybe had another knife there too.

"If any, it's good advice, I guess." I scratched my head. "I'd lost a few weapons down the lower floors myself…" Not to mention all that loot we had to leave behind when we did the potion run, those mantis blades and sword stag antlers were something to behold. And sadly, the only real loot I had to show for that time were the ones we got from the nineteenth floor: some bugbear fur and nails, lizard men hide and fangs, and those vouivre tears which weren't all that useful but still fetched a pretty penny.

"Let's go." Aiz pumped her fist. And by pumped, I mean awkwardly gestured at the air so slowly that it barely looked like the expression it was probably meant for, either that or she wanted to claw at the air like a beckoning cat. It was anyone's guess at this poiny.

"B-before we go," Bell said. He was scratching behind his head. "Do you all mind if we pick up some food first from the Hostess of Fertility?"

#

Walking together with Aiz was as nerve wracking as the first time I did it, and I could better understand now what Bell was going through with all the shock of meeting a celebrity like this, minus the wonder. People stared wherever we passed, and it was only thanks to Aiz walking in front that the attention didn't reach me or the two behind us. Besides, spending time with Aiz was more of a health hazard than anything entertaining, for me at least.

"So Tom," Welf said, "any plans on how deep we're going?"

I looked back. "Aiz would help keep anything too much at bay so let's get you guys something from the sixteenth or seventeenth?"

The blonde looked back and nodded, and the people around us sort of nodded too.

Guys young and old of all races looked, and it was pretty disturbing to see such intense looks directed at my young companion. There were some women mixed in too, but mostly amazons. It was a different experience compared to whenever I went with Gareth since we never turned any heads except for the ones who recognized his face, which didn't amount to much since his helmet usually covered up most of his features. That one time I went along with Finn and the others though was like a full on red carpet experience with how people cleared away where we went.

"The seventeenth…" Bell said. There was something refreshing with how he still couldn't meet Aiz's eyes, but at least he wasn't as nervous a mess anymore. "Wasn't there a monster rex there?"

"It's supposed to spawn every two weeks, but good luck with even getting to fight it. The people of Rivira make a point of clearing it every time it spawns to keep business going, and the passing familias are also likely to take care of it." Which is why even how dangerous the eighteenth floor's rest town's location was, it was still well defended because of how much action the people there got. And whenever the de facto mayor got killed, which was already rare, another guy would more than gladly take up the post.

"About that…" Aiz said. "There would be… minotaurs."

Bell missed a step, whether from Aiz directing her gaze at him or the memories of that fateful incident. "Ah, y-yeah."

"I'll… keep you safe." Aiz nodded.

The kid scratched his head. "T-thank you, Ms. Wallenstein."

She shook her head. "Aiz."

"Right," Bell said, "umm, Aiz, thank you."

"Do you mind if I called you Aiz too?" Welf asked.

"It's… alright."

"If all goes well we can push for the entrance of the nineteenth and hope for some drops. And since I intended for this to get you two some nice things, we'll split whatever we get three ways."

Bell clenched his fist. "I'll be in your care for now." The kid turned to face Aiz, his cheeks with a light blush, and gave a crooked smile.

We arrived at the Hostess of Fertility with a horse carriage parked in front of it. A bunch of the waitresses in their maid outfits were unloading fresh ingredients, while Mia Grand talked to the coach driver. A grey-haired girl waved at our group and Bell waved back.

"Bell?" She walked up to us with a smile, still holding a paper bag filled with greens. Her eyes were glued onto Aiz and quickly looked her from the toes up.

Bell stepped up to the front of our group. "Hi Syr," he greeted.

"You're friends with the sword princess?" The girl, Syr leaned towards Aiz's direction then gave me and Welf some quick glances.

"I guess I am?" Bell chuckled. "Thomas and Welf are my friends, you might remember them from last time?"

Syr squinted at me. She was a bit taller but that was because she was wearing heeled boots while I wasn't, so it didn't count. "You've been at the Hostess before that too, I believe, Thomas?"

"Yeah, but I'm not very good at remembering names and faces, so sorry just in case we've been introduced before, Syr."

"And a pleasure as well, Welf," Syr said. She put a finger up to her lips. "And aren't you all from different familias?"

Bell nodded. "We are, but Thomas offered to help us get some materials from the lower floors."

"Isn't that nice," Syr said. She gave me one long look before going back to Aiz. "And the sword princess agreed to this?"

Aiz nodded. "I… wanted to compensate Bell."

We all looked at her, and the girl fidgeted the slightest.

"Umm, compensate?" Syr said.

Bell had a puzzled look and Welf had his brows raised.

I sighed. "She meant to say apologize, for that time with the werewolf?"

"Ah." Syr brought her hand up to her chin.

The boy, however, let out a big puff of air and faced the blonde, there was steel in his eyes despite the soft blush. "You don't have to, Aiz. I've forgotten the matter already." He also turned to face me. "And Thomas, if this was also your intention for offering to help me down in the Dungeon, then it is appreciated, but I cannot accept it."

This kid couldn't have been older than me. Alright Tom, you got this, just make up some shit like you've always done. "Actually, it wasn't you I was planning on helping but Welf."

"Oh," Bell said. "Eh?"

Welf frowned. "Wasn't it the other way around? I remember your goddess telling me to keep you from going too low the first time."

"Ah, but that's only if I'm not accompanied by someone two levels higher."

Bell tilted his head at me, and Syr's expression turned to one less evaluating and more intrigued. Or at least looked like it. I couldn't tell with her hand covering her mouth, but her eyes were focused on me now.

"And I'm also not allowed to give Welf any better materials he hasn't killed himself before since it wasn't going to give as much exilia or somesuch if he worked on those." I shrugged. "Eh, gods and their rules, am I right?"

Aiz tilted her head at me, and Syr raised a brow. Bell, however, nodded to everything I said.

"And the sooner I can get Welf to gain his blacksmith development ability, the sooner I can drag him to lower levels and get myself some better gear. Since I won't be allowed to use any of my expedition gear outside of them." I clicked my tongue. "Aiz coming along to do her thing wasn't part of my intentions. But you, Bell, are one of Welf's only customers—"

"Take that back you ingrate!"

"—and if you can serve as advertisement for him, and trust me, we've taken notice. It'd help me out a lot too, not to mention it'd benefit you too since you now have a contract with him, yes?"

Bell stroked his chin.

 _And I thought I lied a lot._

"Huh, you thought that far ahead?" Welf shook his head. "I thought you were more of a meat head."

"And yet everyone keeps calling me insane, for some reason."

Everyone there looked at Aiz.

She shrugged.

"Isn't that counterproductive though?" Syr asked with a frown. "Wouldn't arming Thomas better be, well, better?"

Aiz shook her head. "Thomas… is bullshit."

"I'm sorry what?" Bell's face cycled through some indeterminate states.

"Thomas… is strong." She nodded.

Bell's brows twitched. "He is?"

"Mmm." Aiz nodded.

The kid smiled with too much teeth. "I see. If it's to help Welf, then I can come along too." He turned to me. "But I don't want the Loki familia's pity, or Aiz's remorse."

I turned to the blonde. "You heard him, Aiz. This isn't you apologizing."

She didn't look too happy with that. "…Okay."

 _I hope you know what you're doing, Tom._

I do too, Loki.

#

Bell got a packed lunch from Syr, and Aiz, Welf, and I bought our own meals to go around the stalls near Babel. The walk to the Dungeon's entrance was still marked with unwarranted looks, but Bell wasn't fidgeting anymore now. Me and Welf though, that was a different story. It was almost mesmerizing to see the kid change so quickly, and maybe that was related to what made him so special to Freya's eyes, and maybe it wasn't. Either way, I still wanted to see for myself.

We arrived at the main doors of Babel and saw Helun waiting off the side. She wasn't happy with seeing me or Aiz, that much I could tell from how her fingers clutched at the straps of her bag.

Moment of truth then. "Hey Helun, will you be fine with going down to the middle floors? Aiz and I will be sure to keep Bell safe." I swallowed hard and prayed she didn't cut me down here and then.

Her cheek twitched, but those steady green eyes betrayed nothing. "Why would you bring a level one so deep?"

"So Welf here can get some nice loot, we loyal customers of his were hoping to fill up his stock."

She studied me closer, then looked at Aiz, then at Welf. "I don't like this," she said. Bell smiled wryly. "And of course you have a Salamander Hide coat…" The girl with the ponytail massaged her temples. Also, was she always so… eye-catching? Then again, all of the people under Freya whom I'd met had this… attractiveness to them, Ottar and Serin included. Her other executives were like that too, as if there was some sort of quality that just pulled at my notice.

"I'm also pretty resistant to fire." Not at all, but I had to give her something. "And Welf's a blacksmith, and besides, I've already taken him down to the fifteenth floor."

Helun glared at me. "I remember."

Well, shit. "Come on, it'll be a chance to get Bell some better stuff! Who says no to better stuff! And the money's better down there too."

"Is that so?" Bell said. There was a twinkle in those eyes.

"Yeah, a magic stone from a minotaur fetches around a thousand five hundred per piece, and a lygerfang's at two thousand." Which was probably why Rivira could operate for so long and also why the Guild tolerated its existence. The magic stones of the Middle Floors were the most cost effective in terms of difficulty versus returns, with the monsters spawning fast enough but still limited to melee attacks, while being strong enough to still pose some challenge to level twos. Such a combination led to the fifteenth to seventeenth floors as the best grinding area in the Dungeon, both for exilia and money.

Whoever could survive the trek down the eighteenth floor whenever they wanted to could participate in the regular grinding parties the rogue town held every other day. And it was also this regular party that subjugated the Goliath whenever they could. Yes, people died to these sessions, but the returns outweighed the cost. Not to mention those who survived the trips enough times usually managed to level up, but the lack of a challenge pretty much confined everyone who didn't want for more to level three.

This reasoning was why Loki and the big three didn't want me using my expedition stuff outside of special circumstances. If the gear did all the work, then part of the meaning of the challenge would be lost.

Bell's eyes went wide. "I… didn't know minotaurs were worth so much."

Well, no. In the grand scheme of things, a minotaur was only worth its salt once you've reached mid-level two and could kill them off without too much trouble, but try it any earlier and it's good only for exilia. The former, of course, made it necessary for someone or a few someones to watch said grinder's back, while the latter was profitable with a liberal helping of stamina and mind potions. Assuming Hestia still hasn't received any new familia members, since Bell was still going with Helun, that probably meant that no one could officially do this for Bell. And if they followed a normal progression, then it would take a lot longer for Bell to be able to do this for his junior members in the future.

Another complication of gaming the minotaurs and lygerfangs was that the way down to the fifteenth wasn't as easy since people would first have to go through the hellhounds and almiraj of the thirteenth and fourteenth floors. Those bastards had such small profiles that them spawning barely made any marks on the Dungeon walls, and paired off with the many twists, corridors, semi-floors, and turns of the thirteenth and fourteenth floors, then it stood to reason why that area was so dreaded.

Dungeon worms also didn't give a single shit about where they spawned, so there was that too.

"As long as you've got the strength to reach Rivira on your own, then you can live a cushy life anywhere, Bell." Level threes outside of Orario were basically superheroes compared to the common folk, and anyone higher than that was either royalty or a living legend.

Helun sighed. "He's not wrong…"

"Minotaurs…" the kid said. He clenched his teeth, then looked at Aiz. Bell turned to Helun with a smile. "I've got to face them someday, right?"

"You do," Helun said. "Are you sure about this?"

The boy reached for the small of his back. "If not now, then when?"

"Don't… push yourself too hard." Aiz had a somber expression.

Bell held a fire in his eyes. "I also want to be the one to save people too."

#

We entered the Dungeon with Bell and I as the vanguard, Welf for clean-up, and Aiz and Helun watching everyone's backs. Technically it was just Aiz, but Helun had a few cheap weapons with her she could use whenever. The dive was easy going all the way down the eleventh floor, though we slowed a little by the mist-ridden twelfth. Bell, however, didn't meet much issues thanks to his long-range quick chant spell, and the light it provided was enough to rat out the silverbacks.

He fought for most of the higher floors with the off-white knife and the grey short sword thing. Its blade looked like a half-broken sword with a wicked sharp point on its front edge, and it could chop as easily as it could stab. It was a beautiful weapon that served him well, and it was enough for Bell to dismember silverbacks with.

We fought on until we reached the stairs down to the thirteenth floor and stopped to give everyone a breather.

"Ready?" I gripped my short sword and war hammer.

"This will be my first time so deep, and to think we'll push further in as well." There was a light sheen of sweat on his brow illuminated by the glowing crystals surrounding the passage down. He sheathed the off-white knife and pulled out a black one that seemed to glow along its length.

"Let's just make sure to get to the fifteenth as soon as we can?" Welf said.

"…fast," Aiz said. "Good."

Bell smiled at that.

"This is gonna be rough." Helun shook her head. "You better make good on that promise."

Aiz knew the way down the Dungeon like the back of her hand, for anything above the thirtieth floor at least. Over the last few days, I'd been gathering as much information as I could on anything and everything I could get my hands on. The average bounty per magic crystal, for one, was a nice pamphlet the Guild gave out as long as you asked for one. There was also that little tidbit I learned about Rivira after talking to Cadfael, the one about the grinding parties.

Little tidbits of information people slowly built up over time like this was invaluable in learning what made a city tick. Because when you really think things through, some just didn't add up. For one, Orario has existed for about a thousand years already, which was also around the same time the gods had descended, and yet for all that time, the deepest floor explored was the fifty-ninth also by a now defunct familia. Assuming a thousand to be the base, and bump up that floor count by another, then people were exploring the Dungeon by about one floor every sixteen years, give or take a few. That wasn't the real rate of course, since the lower floors would take longer the upper ones. I also learned, as well as experienced, that floors grew larger the lower the floor, which probably lent to the difficulty of exploring the deeper ones.

"I will," Aiz said. She barely had to lift a finger during these first few floors with me, Bell, and Welf doing all the fighting, but lower than here and we were bound to need her help. Even as a level two and with all the confidence of going solo all the way down to the twelfth floor, the thirteenth and below was still too large a hurdle to cross, and perhaps when my stats were high enough I could brave the gauntlet of hellhounds and almiraj, but right now, I couldn't. They spawned and came too fast, and though their individual attacks couldn't hurt me as much, getting swarmed by about five to six was still a problem until my Endurance could build up high enough.

Which meant my resolve still wasn't enough.

Bell took that first step down the stairs and I was right next to him. The passage opened up to the uniform grey stone maze-like thirteenth floor with all the little stairs going up and down its pseudo floors and its corridors opening left and right leading to all manners of rooms and dead ends. It was nice how the Dungeon didn't change its structure, else it would've been a hell of a lot more difficult to explore, and mapping the floors would've been a futile exercise.

The first thing he got was a gander at a hellhound coming out of the walls—which I didn't waste time with in cutting down. Another few spawned further down the corridor together with some almiraj, but that was a trap just waiting to happen.

Bell killed the next hellhound that neared with his grey knife. "They're not as tough as the silverbacks."

"They aren't, but their fire breath is what makes them so dangerous."

The pack of fresh spawned monsters came bounding for our necks, and Welf bisected an almiraj by our formation's left while Aiz cut down anything even remotely near Helun. I was sure Aiz already figured out who the supporter was, and it was surprising how much tact she displayed with not pointing it out. That was a big plus in my book for her, though it might be too harsh of me to have such a low opinion of her grasp of social etiquette.

We advanced while taking directions from Aiz, and always making sure no hellhounds remained in front.

"Let Thomas deal with the front, Bell," Helun said. "He's a level two."

The kid turned back to look at her. "He is!?"

"I am." I rushed the next pack of hellhounds and almiraj and took care of them with a quick flurry of my two weapons. "And dude, don't just suddenly look away from where you're going like that!"

"A-ah, yeah, sorry!" Bell flew in with a formless flying kick that broke a hellhound partway through spawning from the wall.

We haven't been collecting any magic stones at all on our way down since the intention was to farm lower, and we could always farm the monster on the upper floors on our way back. Conserving our strength for these goddamn dogs and rabbits was more important, not to mention the beasts we'll face in the fifteenth. If we were lucky, we could maybe push as far as the entrance to the nineteenth and get some of the good stuff. At least, relative to their current levels.

Looking at Bell fight was like watching someone playing a video game. He rushed in committed to his blows while his speed made up for the lack of any defensive options. The kid rushed the next hellhound and stabbed it in the face with his black knife while his grey short sword stopped an almiraj's stone axe. I then smashed the rabbit from its head down and chopped the head off another hellhound.

"Come on!" Bell said with a smile.

"You weren't kidding when you said this was a loot run." Helun already had a handful of rabbit fur and dog fangs.

The spawning wasn't as crazy yet because we weren't even halfway through the floor, and it was thanks to that that I felt the rumbling under the ground. "Look alive, here comes the most annoying monster in the world!"

Bell jumped back towards Aiz and the rest as the ground cracked underneath me, I rolled away as a gigantic worm shot out from the ground with its mouth full of triangular teeth.

"A snake?!"

"Worse," Welf said. "Worms."

"Eh?"

I swung up at the worm's body using the pick end of my hammer and pulled the rest of it out of the ground before slamming it back down. " _Madness_." My weapons burst forth with black mist and the monster writhed in my magic. I stomped its body in half.

"Firebolt!"

Red light flew from Bell's hand and through the air next to me and hit the almiraj that came for my head, and I slashed it apart in mid-air. The rabbits following it I crushed and stomped after, and the hellhounds fared no better.

Bell and I had not needed to use any magic until now, but the thirteenth floor was just that brutal. Anyone else would've already been overwhelmed by the massive numbers of monsters coming from both front and back as well as the sides, but just having Aiz here made it so damn easy I could've mistaken it for the eleventh. When Ruth, Welf, and I went down here the last time we had to rely on a really tight battle formation that aimed to funnel all the monsters into a single direction, but with Aiz, I didn't even have to care about anything else besides the front.

And it wasn't helping the cause.

Aiz flickered with flashes of silver as monsters burst into ashes before they even could react. It was saving us our strength, yes, but Welf and Bell weren't getting the exilia they should. That, and the actual hell of experiencing the thirteenth floor. We walked on, and I hung back a little closer to the blonde.

"Aiz, maybe you could let Bell, Welf, and I also defend the back? Helun's the only one you need to guard." Yeah, from stabbing our backs. "We should be the ones to take the pressure of the thirteenth floor."

"Thomas?" Bell said.

"But Aiz should step in at the first sign of danger, right?" Helun said. Her temple was twitching. And it was a little difficult to take her seriously with how much rabbit fur she had draped over her arms.

"Do we really have to do this?" Welf said.

"Bell, this isn't even close to the authentic experience of this floor."

As always, the kid smiled. "Ah, then yes, please leave it to us."

Aiz pouted the slightest bit. "O… kay."

Helun brought two fingers to her eyes before pointing then back at me, and I returned a thumbs up. She kept the drop loot in her bag before smacking her fist into her open palm. We resumed our trek for the passage down.

The next pack of hellhounds and almiraj came coupled with some worms. They came from the front and behind and the side passages and charged together. I rushed forward while Bell stayed back with Welf. As a level two, I could tell my abilities were higher than Bell's but he made up for the difference in strength with how enthusiastic he was. I was conserving my efforts for the brunt of the fourteenth and the rest of the floors, as well as the trek back, but I guess he couldn't afford that same control. There was also the fact he couldn't have known how much he needed to go down and back up again since he'd never been down here before.

Welf's sword swings were still too wild, his strength was high but he lacked the finesse to properly cleave, and he'd sometimes misalign his edge and end up half smashing some of the other monsters. That was the same issue I was having with my great sword, it was too large to control with fine skill, at least for now. I hadn't wielded it again since levelling up, so maybe I should bring it with me the next time.

We finished off the pack only for another to join in right after.

The hellhounds Bell was keeping at bay with Welf were bolstered by the additional rabbits while the almiraj I was tangling with received some ranged support from a salvo of fire breaths.

Bell bisected a hellhound's face with his black knife. "There's so many!"

Welf slashed sideways and took off the heads of some almiraj as well as caught the torso of a hellhound. "I hate the thirteenth floor!"

" _Madness_." I enveloped myself with my black flames. " _Welcome to hell boys!_ "

"Can I… help now?"

Needless to say, the journey onward was a hell of a lot more hectic after that. Bell had to fire off his magic in succession every now and then while Welf would cycle between swings without pause. I, on the other hand, ran around the general area of battle while disabling and igniting as many monsters as I could with my magic and weapons. The fights almost never ended, and as it dragged on, I was defending less and less. Instead of parrying or dodging the axe swings of the almiraj, I'd receive them on my armor in favor of hitting back. And the fire breaths now were reduced to mere flashes of heat as opposed to flying agony and death.

Helun was still being protected by Aiz. Not really, more like they were walking together and Aiz happened to be the one to kill all the monsters. But her eyes were watching me more now. Yes, I was revealing some of my own cards to Freya, but it wasn't like we weren't on the same side. Also, this level of fighting wasn't even close to whatever Bell could gain from the upper levels, and not to mention all that loot we were getting. It wasn't a disturbing amount yet, but we were getting there. The fangs were already starting to poke out of Helun's bag's sides, and soon enough we'd have to maybe also give Aiz a back pack.

If she'd agree to carrying one, that is. She probably would. Maybe.

 _I'm just amazed you already have a level five as a pack mule._

Don't you mean, you're amazed Freya can spare a level five for the heck of it?

 _That too._

#

About two-thirds of the way through the thirteenth floor, Bell had to take his first stamina and mind potions. Welf already drank for stamina half-way through, and I was still doing pretty well given the leeching properties of my magic. As long as I was surrounded by enough enemies and not getting too banged up, I could sustain myself pretty long in the fights. The only drawback being the mind-numbing mental exhaustion. Bell's Salamander Hide coat did well with defending against the hellhounds, and his knives kept cutting without losing their sharpness, and that black knife of his he was even using to clash against the stone axes of the almiraj edge first.

Welf wasn't too happy about that so the kid got told off a few times and received some pointers from Aiz on how to better care for his weapons.

We reached the passage for the fourteenth floor with us three main combatants all a little worse for wear. Welf's armor was scratched and nicked everywhere while his vambraces suffered most of the abuse. Bell and I hadn't fared any better though, since we were using our vambraces to receive attacks too. We were all covered in a few wounds as well, but none of them serious enough to need a potion.

Helun passed around some green vials anyway. "It'll get crazier down there."

No one protested, and we polished off the healing liquid by pouring it over our wounds and drinking the rest. I'd recently learned how healing potions could be used in one of two ways, first by having it directly in contact with the injury, and second by drinking. Pouring it directly over the wound allows it to heal the injury almost instantaneously depending on the quality of the brew, while drinking made wounds close gradually over time. The difference was in how much of the potion reached the damage and how fast. Pouring was a faster and more focused application while drinking allowed better coverage at the cost of speed. The two methods had their uses.

All patched up, we set foot down the fourteenth.

And were swarmed from all sides.

Hellhounds charged in from the main and side paths together with almiraj already wielding axes while worms popped out in pairs and trios. Bell and I wasted no time with lashing out, him a flurry of strikes and fire blasts and me a whirling mass of black. Welf was keeping the monsters at bay but there was too much pressure on him given the lack of crowd control between me and Bell. Ruth's skill allowed her to force our opponents back and it was material to the strategy we employed at the time, here though, we had two front line attackers with no support at all. Which basically meant our offense was our defense and that Welf couldn't keep up, since he was never building for a frontline role anyway.

" _Fall back_ ," I said. I bashed away a hellhound with my hammer and stomped on a worm emerging from the ground.

Bell did as told and shot the hellhounds surrounding Welf with his magic, before jumping into a spin and beheading three dogs mid-flight. The way he fought was so wild and eager, and though a little awkward, he at least understood how to get his weapons to move how he wanted them. There was some flashiness to it though, but it worked and that's what mattered. Maybe Freya had plans on polishing his skills further somehow, but that was up to her.

The two of us cleared the rest of the monsters surrounding us but reinforcements came too soon for us to make proper progress forward. Welf's shoulders fell when he saw the next pack of hellhounds and almiraj, but his swing didn't falter when it cleaved through the three hellhounds in front of him. Our struggling showed how ill prepared we were for the trip since our composition was basically all vanguard of varying styles with nothing to buffer our lacking defenses. As individuals, we could take care of ourselves on the upper floors, but here that solo mentality was only for the crazy strong. And to think Ottar hinted he'd achieved all his floors alone save for defeating Balor…

" _Aiz_ ," I said, and received an axe each to the forearm and thigh before retaliating with my short sword with one great sweep. Welf reaped with his great sword with large swings while Bell supported him by killing what escaped his reach. " _We could use some help now_."

Silver light filled the space between me and the other two and the monsters all burst into ash.

For the first time since coming down here, I finally caught my breath. I looked around to get my bearings on where we were—I could still see the stairs.

"That's just unfair," Welf said with a groan. He was leaning on his sword stabbed into the ground.

"We've got a long way to go," Bell said. He had his hands on his knees as sweat dripped down from his chin and onto the floor.

"I can't carry any more of these…" Helun said with a handful of teeth and fur.

"Maybe you could also carry a bag, Aiz?" I gave her my best grin.

"You're really pushing your luck here, Thomas." Helun was glaring at me.

"We can't let her do that," Bell said with a frown.

"Yeah Tom," Welf said, "you can't just ask a first-class adventurer to be your pack mule."

Helun slipped on nothing. "Y-yeah, what Welf said."

I pursed my lips at her, and she rolled her eyes.

Silver flashed, and ash filled the air. Welf looked over his shoulder and got his hair dusted with the stuff. I didn't even notice the monsters get killed.

Aiz's had her usual poker face. "I… don't mind."

Called it.

 _No you didn't._

"You Loki familia are all weird," Helun said as she passed Aiz and empty rucksack.

"Frankly, I think that's a compliment."

"Thomas?" Bell said. "I don't see how…"

"Yeah, Tom," Welf said.

"The bright side is, she didn't call us crazy and that she's not protesting against my methods."

"Now that you mention it…" Bell nodded.

Helun scoffed. "Because no other level two I know can straight up ignore getting attacked by a swarm of monsters just because he's too lazy to dodge." She shook her head. "Come on, we're still a long way away from the passage to the fifteenth, at least down there things won't be as crazy."

"It won't?" Bell looked like he ate something bad.

"Oh yeah," Welf said way too happily. "Believe me when I say these rabbits are demon spawn! Minotaurs look cute compared to these!"

And now it was like whatever he ate just made his bowels rumble. "I'm sorry, what?"

Aiz killed another pack of hellhounds and almiraj, then a worm burst from the ground and swallowed up my left leg. I hit it with my hammer until it died and kicked the corpse off. "Minotaurs don't spawn as fast as the rabbits, and the fifteenth floor is more spacious than here. Also, monsters can't hound you into a dead end as easy and getting encircled is harder with so much ground."

"But that's if you can cut through their thick hides," Welf said.

We pushed on with me covered with Despair while Bell fired off his firebolts without restraint. We downed mind potions when we needed them and Aiz helped less and less the further in we were. Welf still needed her help so he didn't get swarmed, but couldn't find a window to cast his magic. Above, he still had some leeway with using his ignis fatuus causing short chant, but here, Aiz had to intervene every now and then just to make sure he didn't get eaten by a worm or mauled by one of the almiraj.

When we reached the fifteenth floor, Bell was the first one down the passage.

And the first one as well to square off with a minotaur. Welf took on his own beast while Aiz supported him and I cleaned up the hellhounds surrounding us. Worms showed up every now and then, but the minotaurs still outnumbered the burrowing beasts. Bell had sheathed his knives in favor of the great sword he borrowed from Helun.

I clipped a minotaur by the knee with my hammer and beheaded it with my short sword before taking a halberd to the forearm from another. I stabbed it through its neck and caved its head in. Welf parried a halberd strike into the ground and spun into a slash, opening a large gash across a minotaur's chest.

Bell clashed with the minotaur he was facing, it swung down and he parried it the same like Welf did and stabbed the beast through the chest. It didn't burst into ash. Bell leapt back to dislodge the blade. Down so low, the differences in our stats were made clearer. I could cleave through the hardened hide and muscles thanks to the boost in strength my level up gave me, and the extra endurance allowed me to bear the onslaught of attacks coming from all sides.

Aiz only defended when she needed to, since we weren't getting swarmed like in the thirteenth and fourteenth. Monster parties weren't unheard of down the fifteenth, but it wasn't as prevalent here as it was in the seventeenth. Here, our full assault configuration worked to allow the two to gain as much exilia as they could, and Bell wasn't doing half bad against the monsters despite fighting them for the first time. Him not using magic was a bit concerning, but his fierce attacks were pushing back the monster he was facing.

I rushed the next pack of hellhounds to wander in and ignited them with my flames while I grabbed one by the neck and threw it bodily at another minotaur that was about to engage Bell. The black flames jumped from the dog to the cow, and I launched myself at the biped and stabbed it full of holes.

Bell spun into a slash and wounded the thigh of his opponent which allowed him to bash away its halberd. And Welf slashed down at the shoulder of the minotaur he was facing, and it burst into ash.

My great sword would've made short work of these things if I had it. Note to self, bring it with me next time. I didn't bother dodging the dungeon worm that bit at my shoulder in favor of grabbing onto the next minotaur to show up. It, the worm, was already touched by my flames anyway, and in time it too would die just like the monster now getting poked full of holes.

With one last great swing, Bell disemboweled the minotaur and it fell to its knees. He walked up to the twitching beast and took his black knife out—and stabbed it into the creature's chest. The monster burst into ash.

And I just finished off the last hellhound to wander in.

"Yeahhhh!" Bell jumped up and down, his arms flailing in the air together with the great sword he still had.

We kept fighting on after that.

#

We called it quits after Bell and Welf got themselves about a dozen horns, and with the magic crystals Helun finished carving out, we ended up filling Aiz's bag sooner than I thought. I took the bag from Aiz on the way up so she could better defend our spent asses. The magic stone exchange was our first stop, and both Bell and Welf couldn't believe their eyes at the small bag of thousand Varis coins that amounted to a total of four hundred and fifty thousand plus change. It was a slight shame we couldn't get them some Lygerfang fur, but once we ran out of potions from fighting the minotaurs, we didn't have a choice anymore on staying.

It was straight for Welf's workshop once we finished to deposit the goods as well as eat our packed lunches. We were so focused on the fighting that we'd foregone eating, so we didn't lose momentum. And it showed with the bag full of minotaur horns, almiraj fur, and hellhound and dungeon worm teeth Bell and Welf now had between them.

Welf opened the door and welcomed us in. "I have a clean table at the back, we can eat there. Just set all the stuff down here by the door." He dropped his bag full of materials down onto the floor and Bell and I did the same. Aiz was still with us, but Helun had gone ahead to do whatever else it was she did. She told us to leave her share with Bell and that she trusted him to be fair.

A level five like her had no need for chump change anyway.

"I've never held this much money before," Bell said with eyes wide open. He turned to the filled to bursting bags. "And, did we really just take home so much?"

"Yes we did," Welf said. "Aiz here wasn't kidding when she called Thomas bullshit." He shook his head. "I'd tried my luck before at going down the Dungeon, and the goblins of the eighth and ninth floors didn't drop that many teeth like what we'd just witnessed. Tom here likely has a skill that increased monster drop rates."

"You do?" It was that same twinkle in Bell's eyes I'd seen before.

"I did say it'd be worth your while, right?" And from what I'd seen, I'd say it was worth mine as well. I couldn't see much of what made Welf special to Hephaestus, but that focus and drive Bell had was simply mesmerizing to see down the Dungeon. There was something else I couldn't place my finger on though, like why would he be like that if he was such a normal looking kid. Then again, what the hell counted as normal anyway? I wasn't native to Orario after all.

"Bullshit." Aiz nodded.

Bell's face fell, but he recovered. "It'd be nice if I could have a skill like that too," he said. "Then maybe my familia wouldn't be in so much debt."

"Ah," I said. "Are you in trouble then?" Was he getting shaken down or something? I doubt Freya would let such happen, but maybe her information network wasn't as extensive as I suspected it to be?

Bell shook his head. "Not like that, but earning faster would be much nicer." He sighed. "Selling off those drops wouldn't make much of a change with our debts anyway, but at least it'd help me earn better later."

"Must be tough then," I said. "To be the only member of your familia."

The kid nodded. "We make do."

Welf cleared the table that had a few tools on top of it, then he took down some benches stood against the wall and set it near. It was like an indoor picnic table once he was done with it. The four of us took our seats in a line and opened our food over the dust-free work table. The surface of it was a polished wood protected by varnish, and it was free of damage like a normal work table.

We all ate without speaking, and finished off our food.

Bell was the first to speak. "I didn't think the day I could beat a minotaur would come so soon." He was smiling at Aiz.

The blonde nodded. "You… grow fast." She turned to me. "Like Thomas."

Bell's eyes shone with that. "I am?"

She nodded again. "Bullshit."

Welf laughed while the poor kid frowned. "I-I don't know what to say to that."

I waved a hand dismissively in front of me. "Don't mind her, she's not that articulate with her words. Think of what she said as praise instead."

"I guess thank you works?" Welf offered.

"Eh, beggars can't be choosers."

"Thomas, I find that hurtful." Bell wasn't smiling.

"Wait, no, I meant like, you can't choose if…" I facepalmed. "It's a saying from back home, and no it doesn't refer to actual poor people. It's about being picky."

"Err, sorry for being so touchy about money," he said with a small bow of his head. "It's just that my goddess gets a lot of terrible things said about her because of it."

 _Yeah, that itty-bitty mostly titty girl's just so horrible with money._

Bad enough that her only familia member has a complex about it bad.

 _Yikes._

"I understand," I said. And boy, did I ever. Not here though, I didn't have any problems here with money. But back home… well, I've only had that last job for about two years, before that it was underemployment galore.

"You do?" Welf said. "I thought you were royalty?"

Aiz tilted her head. "Thomas?" She looked at me. Her head turned a tad to the side. "Not royal."

"It was a joke, Welf." I shrugged.

"That explains why you don't behave like a royal," Welf said.

"It was a funny misunderstanding, so I didn't bother correcting it. But I've had my fair share of money troubles before." Like having to pay for an apartment in a city I couldn't afford. Man, did I make some bad choices before.

Dude, this kid's like what, fifteen? And he's already complaining about labor and money problems!

 _Like your world was any better, Tom. Your era wasn't exactly a utopia. Life is life, it happens._

"I need to get strong enough to reach the fifteenth floor on my own," Bell said. "It was… amazing to earn that much in a few hours. Usually I'd need to stay the entire morning and afternoon in the seventh floor just to get half of what we did…"

"You'll get there," I said. "Look at me, I didn't think I'd ever level up, but here I am shrugging off hellhound fire and dungeon worms trying to eat my limbs."

"No Tom, that's not normal at all," Welf said.

"Bullshit," Aiz said.

"I'll have to agree with her on that," Bell said. "Don't tell me you also have a skill that allows you to ignore monster attacks." He chuckled.

And all I did was stare at him.

"…wait, are you serious?" Welf said.

"Bullshit," Aiz repeated.

"No way." Bell stood from the seat.

I smiled.

"Tom aside, we should get our spoils split up, I'm itching to start on working with the new things we have," Welf said. His eyes kept darting towards the bags by the door. "You can't imagine how exciting it is to know I got those horns myself—not including Thomas being bullshit."

"I don't like the word, but I can understand why." Bell opened the bag of money over the table and we all watched the brilliant coins reflect the sunlight coming in from the windows in a myriad of watery reflections. "It's beautiful."

After divvying up the money five parts fairly, it left ninety-thousand Varis for each of us. Aiz declined her share, citing she could make millions in a matter of hours down by the forty-fifth floor, and no one there doubted her. With envy, Bell pooled her money and was about to divide it by four when I also declined my share of Aiz's money. My excuse was that it was for brownie points with Hephaestus in case I ever needed a favor from her, and the same went for Hestia. It would do me well to get into some of the other gods' good graces after all.

As for the loot, Bell and I didn't really bother anymore with dividing it up since Welf was gonna be the one to work it anyway. I could get more of the stuff whenever I needed so it was more important our smith had enough to practice with. Besides, if the expedition was anything to go by, I could probably get myself something from some of the deeper floors and have Tsubaki use that for my non-expedition stuff.

We left the workshop with the sun just about to set, and Aiz and I returned to a lively home with the alcohol already flowing.

Gareth and the rest of his group returned earlier that afternoon, and he did end up taking down Balor, the monster rex of the forty-ninth floor, though he had to get the help of everyone else with him. Turns out it wasn't as easy to fight a giant goat monster that could shoot laser beams from its eye, so go figure. It wasn't a surprise then how none of them levelled up from the affair, since only Riveria, Gareth, and Raul were the only ones close to one. They did, however, bring back half its horn which Gareth broke off before needing any help.

It was twice the size of his person and just as thick, and this would basically be the base of what my armor would be made of, as well as a nice new axe for him too.

And with their return, it also meant the beginning of the mission to raid the pantries of the other floors.


	17. Vol 2 Chapter 4

**Volume 2**

 **Chapter 4**

Gareth set the boulder of a horn down within Tsubaki's workshop, its entirety taking up most of the space inside her smithy. It dwarfed the pile of unused horns, claws, and whatever other sharp things she had making up her hoard. I would've been lying if I said it wasn't a little disturbing to see the barely clothed Tsubaki in her hakama and chest wraps panting over the thing while I guided Gareth in.

Without any greetings or acknowledgements, she took a dainty hammer to the thing and struck it, the thing coming alive with a sonorous knell.

Like a giant bell tolling for the coming storm.

"This…." Tsubaki kept hitting the horn in various places, each angle and corner carrying a different pitch of a just as rich timbre. Her smile grew wider and wilder with each blow, her arm coming down harder and harder. Tools clattered on the tables, her pile of loot collapsed, and dust fell from the wooden beams as my knees wobbled from each blow felt through the ground. She wasn't holding back in the slightest. "This is amazing!"

Her eye reflected nothing else but what she had in front of her.

"I'm glad you like it." Gareth smiled at the girl who got her Christmas gift early. Welf explained to me before how valuable monster drops were to smiths like him and her. Monsters, born from the Dungeon, were partly made up of the same stuff that made it up: Adamantite. It was the be all end all material that could only be sourced from the Dungeon, among other things, but it was the easiest to get from all of them. There were other materials too though, like Valmarth, Crerhil, Fleanyx to name a few, and other surface world fantasy metals like Mythril and Orichalchum that each boasted of different properties like enhancing magic conduction or holding a perfect edge for centuries or whatever.

But Adamantite, _that_ could be taken and refined from the drops as opposed to having to mine the Dungeon's walls.

She scratched at its surface with her fingernail and sniffed, then narrowed her eyes at whatever it was she smelled. Tsubaki picked up a large chisel from another pile of metal. "I don't know how long it'll take, but I understand you want something for you and a little bit of it for Tom here?"

Tsubaki reared back for a big swing, setting the chisel in a cranny and struck with a thundering blow. Half of it shot towards the roof and the other half embedded itself into the ground. Also, the hammer head was gone from her tool.

An uneasy smile snaked its way out of Gareth's scruffy beard. "That'd be appreciated, Tsubaki." He put a large and heavy hand over my shoulders. "We'll need to put this here freeloader to some honest work down the Dungeon."

Just being in the same room as the thing made the hairs on my skin stand on end, its presence was a thick and heavy energy I couldn't ignore. And seeing how the broken off rounded part of the horn was already taller than me, what more the creature it came from? I shifted from one foot to the other, the hairs on my arms and neck orienting with my position. "Don't worry, soon enough I'll earn my own share."

I needed to anyway.

"It's just a matter of time now." Tsubaki scrunched her nose then picked up a larger hammer. I wasn't sure if hitting it harder would help, but I wasn't about to second guess the lady who was gonna make the stuff I'd be betting my life on. Our eyes met. Well, her one and my two. "I also heard what you did for Welf."

Gareth looked at me like I'd just ran over a puppy.

The girl tilted her head at the dwarf, then lost interest. She picked up some large stake like thing made of all metal. It looked like the silvered end of a pile driver, which I guess was the point of this. She was trying to break the thing into more manageable pieces, probably, then later forge weld the pieces together. I'd seen her and Welf process monster loot like metal more than enough times, this one was no different. I just haven't seen her do so with something so large before. "He was saying to thank you for getting him those minotaur horns."

My chaperone let out a huff of air. "For a second I thought Tom did something horrible."

I placed a hand over my chest. "O ye of little faith!"

The two didn't even grace me with anything but blank stares.

I steepled my fingers. "And did I do something unnecessary?"

"Hmm?" Tsubaki shrugged—then stabbed the pile into the horn. It stuck. And her smile reached her ears end to end. "Not really? It was nice of you to do that, but I guess Hephaestus was the one who put you up to it." She cradled her chin with the now free hand, the feral smile turning into a devilish grin. That was the look of someone being obvious they knew something. A lesser man would've jumped at the very hint of gossip, but the gods would've done so just for the hell of it.

I was better than that. I raised my hand. "Do I get a prize if I confirm that suspicion?"

She brought her wrists to her hips, the hammer dangling by the side. "Sure, I can give you a two percent discount off your armor."

"I'll take what I can get." Financing in Orario was a total nightmare. If I had bigger balls, and a heftier bank account I could set up an insurance racket or something. But were there even banks here? Did it even make sense to try and set up a bank if I had the time? Given how easy it was to make a shit ton of money, probably not. I could end up disrupting the fragile economy running through the city if I encouraged people to hoard their cash, and a trend like that would just hurt more people than it helped. Also Fels might have my ass for it, if the other gods didn't get to me first.

Tsubaki shook her head. "Eh, sure, why not?" She wound up for another big swing.

Crack!

The horn split in three large pieces, one half and another two quarters falling in shambles towards the floor as the shards took to everywhere. Some of the dust took to the air, and more pieces embedded themselves into the ground, tables, and walls. I didn't notice Gareth had shielded me with his body when it happened, while Tsubaki, now a bloodied mess, waved her hand about her while the fires in her forge came alive once the dust came into them. She took the two smaller pieces and shoved them into her furnace. "Nothing like a solid nail of adamantium, I tell ya!"

"Tsubaki," Gareth said. "Please don't do that with anyone lower than level four in your workshop."

She shrugged and set the nail on the larger shard of horn.

"And shouldn't you get that looked at first?" I gestured at her entire person covered in cuts and nicks and dripping blood in places. I could also see a bit more of her chest where the bandages came undone.

She wound up for another swing. "I'll live."

#

We hightailed it out of the smithy just in time for the next burst of shards and didn't look back. Gareth trusted Tsubaki with his life to give him the best of the best, and if someone who'd reached the pinnacle of adventuring could do so, then so could I. As for what would become of my stuff, well, I hadn't earned it yet anyway, so I wouldn't push my luck unless asked.

Gareth and I returned to the manor to see the rest of the party already assembled and raring to go. Finn had his spear out, its shaft already repaired after getting destroyed yet again from their latest stint. That little detour was entertaining on its own, the Goibniu familia smiths looked like a bunch of harassed salary men robbed of their precious lunch time naps when he came in. One of them asked about the spear, he showed them the busted shaft, then three grown and able-bodied men broke down in tears.

Then I wanted to cry after hearing about the price for repairs.

Riveria and her staff couldn't be ignored in the line-up, while Aiz and Desperate were likewise just as flashy. Riveria's staff, Alvs Lumina, was an even more absurd piece that guzzled fifty million-ish Varis spell stones like a hotrod went through gas. We took a quick trip down to Lenoa's shop, who wasn't too happy with seeing me, to get two of her stones replaced which got done in by her casting at full strength. Twice.

Apparently that incident at the twenty-fourth floor set us back like seventy million, while this one costed a hundred and ten.

Bete and the twins' group hadn't returned yet with Lefiya, so the group that would be making the rounds for the pantries were the three founders, Narvi to guard my ass, then Daffyd and his brothers. Rakta was staying behind to housesit, while everyone else was go about their normal day.

Three level fives and a level four who could hit about half as hard as a level six at level three was a sizeable chunk of our fighting strength, but we had two new level fives, and their latest trip down with the top three had to count for something. Part of their goal with going down with Gareth was to find the materials for that decisive piece of equipment to truly call theirs. And each one came back with what wanted—since they were capable of it now. Rakta brought back some golden horns lined with cyan, Narvi with two bony ones with rings of silver, and Daffyd with a shiny blue slab of metal, it was just one scale apparently. They'd get their weapons by the expedition's start too.

The rest of the group stepped up as Gareth and I neared them.

Loki waited with my gear like before, the smile on her face as light as the wind that carried me home. She had my buckler with her by the manor's entrance, and my great sword and war hammer stood by the wall behind her. Next to her, Finn tossed Gareth his axe which the dwarf caught on its handle. He and I were already wearing our armor, him his usual stuff, and me with the ones Welf made me. It had already incorporated some newer plates made of minotaur horn, the greaves, vambraces, and the main plates on the helmet and vest now an off white versus the previous reddish tint. It still wasn't anywhere near as good as Gareth's, but it was what I had right now and had served me well before.

These last few days without Gareth to ferry my ass through the floors taught me how my weapons were beginning to lose effectiveness the lower I went. My hammer, as useful as it was in the upper floors, could only do so much against the larger and larger monsters and my lack of reach pitted me ever closer to danger. That time with the mantises was particularly bad, I couldn't reach them at all and the few attacks I landed were too shallow to leave any proper damage.

But that was an issue for later.

I stood before Loki, and my goddess raised her head high and spoke with authority, "Return with your shield, Thomas. No alternatives." She broke into a grin.

And I smiled back. "That's the plan."

She handed me the shield while I picked up the weapons near her, strapping them in to their usual spots. Loki also handed me a pouch of potions, mostly health and stamina with a few magics. I fell in with the rest of the line-up and stood between Narvi and Cadoc. The former bumped me by the hip, and the latter bumped forearm plates with me. A few days was enough to change someone, and I suppose a level up counted towards that too. Daffyd and Narvi had changed somehow, but I was yet to see it with my own eyes.

"And give our friend a good view." She passed me Fels's crystal.

"Welp, I hope you're seeing all this," I said to the crystal. I secured the artifact to a nook near my neck where my armor fit snug against my body.

Finn stood next to Loki, chest out and that boundless confidence in full view even if he barely reached up to her shoulders. "We'll be sweeping the pantries from the first to the twenty-third floors. Thomas will pass information to Loki as we go. We will not engage in case we encounter any of the new types." He smiled. "Everyone's stronger now compared to the last time we went, but let's not take any chances. We will destroy the monsters with our full force later on, for now, we're just the advance party."

We all answered in the affirmative.

Loki stepped up next. "Tom here thinks this Fels guy is part of the guild, and from what we've seen so far, we haven't had a need to doubt that yet. Treat this as a proper mission and do it for glory. We'll make a profit from this if the previous incident was any indication, and I guess helping people out while we did that is a nice plus." She shrugged. "We made a killing the last time we dealt with him, and chances are good we'll get our dues again."

At least she didn't mince words with her desires. And sure, maybe in some grander scheme we were doing this out of an altruistic need but boil it all down and it was at its purest our problem at the end of the day. If we didn't do anything and just let the bad things going on in the Dungeon go as they did, then it'd bite us in the ass later on. Maybe directly, maybe indirectly, but if not now, then some other time in the future. Someone else could arguably solve the dilemma some other time, but to count on something that may not happen was the luxury of those who didn't give a damn.

"Remember what I'd told you all before," she continued. Loki met my gaze, her red eyes ablaze against the morning sun. She was the closest thing to a constant for me right now, and it said a lot to treat a god as one. In a way, I guess she truly was one, a constant, given her immortality. After all, what were these moments I shared with her but like a few seconds on the clock of her eternity? "Stay true to who you are and do what you do because you want to."

Whether she said that as encouragement or as a challenge now didn't matter. All of us already did that anyway, all for our own reasons. Finn wanted to be a hero to his people, and I wanted to go back home. The others, I still didn't know what made them tick, but it was obvious enough with Bete. He wanted to be the strongest of them all, and the easiest way to achieve that was through the perils in the Dungeon. Aiz was desperate enough to drive towards it, and her reaching level six at such an age more than showed her tenacity. Likewise, the twins had a fire under their asses as well, as goofy as they were. Gareth and Riveria though, I wasn't too sure, but it wouldn't lose to Finn's. How else could they reach so far like he did without the resolve?

"Nobody dies today," Finn said with a finality. "That's an order."

#

The bugbear in front of me got a face full of shield before I split it from its crotch up with my great sword. Its body fell to either side with a splash of blood that carpeted the ground, then I jumped back to close ranks with Cadoc and Brynmor. It was the night cycle right now for the floor, with the brighter central crystals that simulated sunlight during the day dimmed to the same brilliance as the deeper blue crystals surrounding it that imitated the stars.

It was a night sky that had no trailing constellations, and it looked like something someone would make had the sky outside been described to them and they couldn't see for themselves. Loki always said the Dungeon was alive, and the story of Babel being used to plug up the hole that spewed out monsters in droves back then only made this scene eerier.

Diving over the last few days with upper level gear hadn't turned out as easy as it would've been with appropriate gear, from the first through twelfth floors it was all easy going but come the thirteenth and all hell broke loose. I was still under a vanguard type of doctrine when there were others clearly better equipped for the role. As much as acting beyond what my status said would benefit me, the last few days showed just how difficult it really is to go about this adventuring thing like normal.

Aiz swung with subtle arcs with her Desperate, felling the encirclement of bugbears and lizardmen in front of her. Next to her, Daffyd made short work of the monsters with his sword, his shield barely finding use. Gareth, Finn, and Riveria didn't need to raise a hand at all, and Narvi and I only acted every now and then to keep my endurance buff going. I was situated next to Riveria together with Narvi as my guard while Cadoc and Brynmor served as the shortstops for whatever didn't already die to our vanguard, while Gareth and Finn were the rearguard.

We'd already checked through the first to seventeenth floor pantries with me at the helm to start up my endurance counter but hadn't found anything off the ordinary. That was some good news, at least. Our next stop were the ones in the eighteenth and we were en route to the one in the hidden away cave. There were two pantries in the eighteenth floor, and a quick trip to the open air one didn't yield any results either.

Thanks to Butcher, every other monster we killed ended up dropping some loot, especially the ones I did in myself. Narvi's eyes lingered on each one we left behind.

"This is some more of Thomas's doing, isn't it?" Brynmor was frowning as he picked up the bugbear fur left behind from the now disintegrated monster. "Too much loot was dropping, and I'd never seen more than two minotaur horns drop at the same time from a wave."

"Look at the bright side! Money!" Part of that was because there was so many swarming us, and the image of hell that was the thirteenth and fourteenth floors was a veritable sea of fire and rabbit fur. The worms weren't too bad as long as I was covered in my flames, but it still took the Salamander Wool cloak from keeping me from burning to a crisp.

"Which we couldn't use, mind you." Daffyd shook his head.

I also noticed how monster spawn rates were affected by how much people were in a party. When I was dove with just Ruth and Welf, the minotaurs were spawning just enough to pressure but not enough to outright overwhelm us. But the same happened when we had backup together with Francis and Claire, and Bell, Welf, and I barely made any progress when we were down with Aiz and Helun. Considering that, was the expedition that good of an idea? Well, they'd done this multiple times before, so I guess that's a yes?

"It's Thomas, what did you expect?" Narvi glared at me, but the beginnings of a smile hid beneath the frown. Looks like some things didn't change at least.

We didn't bother with bringing any supporters with us since the focus wasn't to collect loot, but it still hurt to leave these furs and fangs behind. If not Tsubaki or Welf, then Cabeiri would at least appreciate the stock. We could maybe collect them on the way back, but only an idiot would hope against hope the scrubs from Rivira wouldn't pick them up. Then again, it's not like people went out of their way to prowl along the perimeter of the town… but was it worth the effort? Meh.

Daffyd looked back with a biggest frown. "Such a waste." He pointed his sword at the lizardman hide left behind. "You'd be surprised how much the gods pay for shoes made out of those!"

"Smells… funny," Aiz said next to him.

"It's getting annoying to come with Tom." Cadoc kicked the mound of bugbear fur. "And I heard from Cadfael you all went down for a potions run? How'd that go?"

"Painful," I said. "We had to leave so much stuff behind from the drops." All those mantis swords, bee stings, swordstag antlers… it hurt me just remembering the ordeal.

"Don't let Tsubaki hear about you then," Gareth said. I looked back to see a grim expression on him. "Else she might drag you down against your will, you know how she gets."

The image of the smith covered in blood resurfaced. I swallowed the lump in my throat. I never found gore a turn on, and I found pain an even worse temptation. "Duly noted."

 _Noted as well._

We walked on along the beaten path through the forest while fighting whatever strayed into our way. The overpowered duo massacred anything in the way and besides the too far away to reach bugbear or lizardman, there wasn't much action to be had. I bisected another bugbear from the waist, before Brynmor bashed its top half away with his shield.

It was the eighteenth floor after all, it'd be a disaster if monsters spawned here just like elsewhere.

The road opened into a sparse gulley, soil and rocks long eroded lined the continuation of the way. It contradicted what I knew of the Dungeon repairing itself, but perhaps it was a design thing? After all, the geometric patterns and jagged outcrops in the upper floors as well as the stalactites and stalagmites all were supposed to be evidence of erosion and wear over time, but any damage the Dungeon suffered either from mortal matters or spawning monsters disappeared in time. Maybe the Dungeon had a template to draw from?

Our group hugged the edge of the gulley and kept going at a steady pace. Going by way of the cramp passage would've limited our defenses and rushing now would do us no good. Maybe if we'd gone before right after the incident in the twenty-fourth then we were more likely to find something, but now that wouldn't be the case. The goal instead was to investigate if there was anything, more a precaution against setbacks for the expedition.

Daffyd stopped at the beginning of a rocky plain littered with cracks that rose from an outcrop. He pointed with his sword at a vein along the wall of stone connected to it. "We'll see the pantry soon. Get ready."

We left the gulley and took the path by the wall, eventually reaching a shallow stream littered with loose stones by its banks.

Before long, we reached the cave by the stream's end. The girl and the dwarf waded into the water, the former beheading a bugbear in the shadows, their steps unhindered by the flow around them.

They disappeared from the cave's mouth.

Daffyd's voice echoed a few seconds in. "We're clear."

The rest of our group followed them in, with the two short-stops spreading out first before we followed in. Riveria sat at the heart of our formation as our main cannon, but as a spellcaster, her defenses still left her wanting. Yes, was stronger than the rest of us lower levelled members in terms of magic like comparing an inch to a mile, but in terms of our physical stats, a focus towards frontline staying power could transcend levels with the appropriate training. That much I'd already seen with the difference between Ruth and Bell, and it spoke volumes of just how absurd the kid was.

 _I bet my ass that kid also has some unique skill like you do._

Tempting, but no one wants to bet against a sure win.

 _Oh? Are you going there, Tom? I could always take the losing side, you know?_

Err, carry on.

I wielded my forearm sized buckler in my left while my right had my great sword in a one-handed grip. It was harder to align the edge wielding it like this, but the squareness of the hilt helped. My war hammer was the better compliment with its smaller size, but to stubbornly hold onto it could stagnate my progress. If I wanted to continue wielding one, the better option would be to make a larger version. Maybe a hamaxe this time. That'd be pretty awesome.

We waded further into the flooded cave with the foot-high water, Aiz and Daffyd staying ahead of us. I could see into the dark cave by a bit and could make out the water and the ceiling but none of the finer details. Brynmor and Cadoc took out their flashlight-style magic stone lamps to help with the search, the tools casting a pale light forward illuminating the way. The water reflected the dim light, the cave's ceiling coming alive with the ripples casted against them in my eyes.

It was surreal to have such technology available like this despite the lack of modernity to the designs above ground. Food boxes that kept ingredients cool, stovetops that didn't need any fuel, even air-conditioning and elevators all existed thanks to the artificers and creativity of the mortals. The only thing missing now were the concrete skyscrapers, asphalt roads, and cars and it would be like I never left home.

Ah, there were the computers and the internet though… but to unleash that dank—in the bad way—hell on this world's denizens with these gods walking with them could set back progress by decades if not centuries. On that note, to introduce long distance communication that didn't rely on having the mystery developmental ability would be a very lucrative business, I believe.

Aiz and Daffyd stopped and looked up, Cadoc and Brynmor did the same. I followed their example. The light beams trailed upwards to the ceiling—and Aiz's arm blurred.

A body hit the water after.

The light aimed at the unexpected visitor and we saw a bright green half of some frog-like creature with one large eye surrounded by a crown of flesh.

Finn passed Gareth his spear and unsheathed his short sword. "Another new species?" He walked up and crouched next to the two halves now scattering purplish blood into the water.

I walked up next to him to inspect the body and crouched down into the water. The blood smelled like fermented foliage. More light revealed its form as Aiz and Daffyd spread out to form a wall between the body and the rest of the cave.

It's fore and rear legs looked like fat sausages attached to long and slender tentacles terminating in webbed hands. It was a pitiful creature straight out of some failed Spore project come to and wreaking all manners of hell on the populace at large. How it did that, I didn't know yet.

Finn touched the carcass. "It has a hide-like feel."

And on closer look, the frog thing kind of had a feminine figure with the part that could've been its back or front sporting what looked like breasts narrowing into a waist then widening into hips attached to the rear legs.

"Stay alert," Finn said. "The pantry is much deeper."

Cadoc and Brynmor shone the lights sideways and elsewhere, illuminating the darkened cave where they passed. It struck me odd how there was a pantry in such a hidden away zone, but I guess there must've been some other entrances monsters could access. Not to mention such a place could easily house a monster party away from curious eyes.

"Let's keep going." Finn stood up and got his spear back. "Expect a fight in case we can't run away."

#

We pushed further into the pantry, the dark cave later revealing glowing crystals just like the ones in the ceiling high above the eighteenth floor. A gentle blue illuminated the water brighter and brighter the deeper we went, until we ended up going downwards together with the now flowing water. It reminded me just how large the floors were.

The cave led down into another chamber like area that housed a smaller crystal like I saw in the twenty-fourth floor—but this one glowing a deep blue and without the large plant coiled around it, nor any vegetation coating the walls and ceiling.

Aiz held up her fist, and we all stopped. She turned back and pointed at Finn and me to join her and Daffyd up front. The two of us complied without saying anything. Noticing the need for such codes after the twenty-fourth, I got to formulating a few simple commands like stop, follow, and scatter. If we figured out some more good ones, we'd write it down for later, but for now, these were enough.

Finn met my eyes as we joined Aiz at the mouth of the cave.

She crouched down as she inched towards the opening.

Then I saw what she wanted to show us. The ground by the pantry's chamber wasn't visible from where the others stood, but up closer, I could see a sea of robed figures together with a bunch of cages filled with monsters from different floors. Near the base of the crystal were a few coiled violas and some campfires here and there. There were also some other structures like tents and stuff but nothing permanent. I removed the oculus from where it sat in my armor and gave it a good gander at the view.

I was hoping we wouldn't find anything at all.

 _Well, shit._

There are people down here in cahoots with the monsters.

Finn bit his thumb, then reached to the pouch by his hip. He took out a feathered pen and some pieces of paper.

We tell the others, he wrote.

The four of us stalked back to the rest of the group and a quick note from him brought everyone up to speed. There were people with cages and dressed in suspicious clothes. All of them were in white, which meant they had some degree of organization to wear a uniform. The monsters with them also meant there was a tamer among them, which Finn had long postulated, and the presence of the cages with the monsters. Which meant they transported the violas some other way. Assuming of course this group was the same one that placed the violas in the sewers and unleashed some during the Feria.

The original plan didn't include engaging the enemy, but that was before we found out there were people involved. People we could interrogate.

We need to capture one of them, Finn wrote.

It went without saying that was the best course of action. It was a horrible time to be illiterate right now. Just because my skill allowed me to read, speak, and interpret their language, didn't mean it also taught me to write. I gestured at Finn that I needed to talk.

He wrote for Aiz to guard the opening of the chamber just in case any of the people down there heard. We were possibly dealing with a few people at level five, given the violas having approximate strength nearing level four. And if all those people down there were level fives… well, things would get dangerous pretty fast.

Finn nodded before he cupped his hands around his ear.

I cupped my hands around my mouth to prevent as much sound from leaking as possible. "We should let Fels decide if we should engage."

He bit at his thumb and his forehead crinkled, that youthful face of his all scrunched up. What does Loki say? he wrote.

 _I'd say ignore Fels and nab these fools already. But this sounds exactly like last time. There aren't that many monsters around you lot?_

None that we could see at least. The mother monster thing isn't here either, so that might be good.

 _Call it a yes for me regardless of what Fels says._

He cupped his ears and I did the same before. "She says to capture one even if Fels said no."

He facepalmed and shrugged. Typical, he wrote. Let's tell Fels, he added.

I nodded and brought the crystal near to my lips, cupping it. "You there?"

"Yes," a whisper answered. "I would also like you to interrogate these people, I will pay handsomely for the information."

Finn rolled his eyes, money made the world go round after all. That settles it, he wrote.

"We'll be back in a bit then." I secured the crystal to my armor.

The two of us rejoined the rest of the group and relayed the new objectives. We had a stronger party this time around, with three level sixes, two level fives, and a level seven. We plotted out our roles. Brynmor and Cadoc would stay to guard Rivera together with Daffyd. Finn would draw the first attack, and him, Gareth, and Aiz would be the main attackers, then me and Narvi would disable whoever we could. Me with my magic, her with her skill.

Given there were violas, Aiz and I would draw out first any in hiding with our spells before Riveria nuked them. And since we had elixirs with us, we were free to dismember these guys in case they weren't friendy, and it was unlikely too given they were coexisting with the monsters that had been plaguing us all this while.

Finn pointed at the paper where the plan was before everyone gave a thumb up in affirmation. The first part of the plan was to have him walk up to the robed guys and probe for their reaction. We haven't formally announced his level up yet in the god's monthly meeting, but anyone who was anyone already knew. If these guys ran, then we knew what we were dealing with. And if they didn't, well, then that made things easier.

The parrum stood up straight and headed for the chamber's entrance. Aiz moved up ahead just behind him and Gareth stacked up behind her with Brynmor and Cadoc, on the other side of the cave, Riveria did the same together with me, Narvi, and Daffyd.

Finn walked into the chamber looking around and looking every bit the tourist who stumbled across the unexpected top-secret government base.

The white robes saw him first, then the violas swarmed him a heartbeat later. Finn twirled his spear and killed the flower monsters as they came, while the robed figures stepped back.

"They're wondering why Finn is there," Riveria whispered.

Violas kept charging our captain, but he wasn't getting pushed back, and the robed guys retreated towards the side of the cave with the cages. The first robed guy ran up to Finn with a sword in hand—and was promptly knocked out.

Then the next guy ran up to him—

—and exploded into a ball of flames. The force of it sent a faint tremor through the ground up to so far away.

Finn jumped away from the smoke a little singed but unharmed.

Fuck. They have suicide bombers.

 _Try and get one, then get out asap._

Finn already went ahead.

 _Change of plans._

"They have suicide bombers," I whispered. I got everyone's attention with that. "Whatever it is they have going on here they're willing to give their lives to to keep from seeing the light of day. Change of plans, let's all run in and incapacitate one or two then run. Loki's orders."

The next explosion had us all scrambling to reach Finn.

Narvi picked me up and jumped towards the captain while Gareth went for the violas near the central crystal and Aiz made a beeline for the other guys holed up by the back wall. Our captain already took care of a few of them and we had a window between the next wave of flower monsters reaching him.

A few more robed mooks ran up to him and exploded, and he had to pick up the unconscious one by his feet with his spear and move them every time another blew up. If one of them could explode, then all of them could. It was likely the knocked out one also had whatever mechanism they had on them that made it possible, and we needed to get it off them asap.

Aiz and Gareth engaged the mess of robed guys as more explosions broke out, the former wrapped in her wind and the latter not bothered in the slightest from the heat and force.

Narvi and I landed next to Finn. "Plan changed, we can't lose this guy."

I ripped off the robes and saw an elf woman strapped to a bunch of glowing red rocks. They were bandaged to her entire person and connected by wires like a spiderweb to some central module with a handle. These bastards were a lot savvier than they let on, and this level of attention either meant someone who thought things through, or there was a really messed up god behind it all.

 _Not good._

"Flame rocks." Narvi pulled my shoulders away and sheathed her sword. She exposed more of the lady's body by taking the robes off the rest of the way, taking care to check for anything else attached to the glowing rocks. "You won't survive if these explode, get back to Daffyd and the others, let me and Finn take care of this."

Finn passed her his short sword, then gave me a nod. "Go Tom, we'll take care of this."

He levelled his spear, and the explosions where Aiz was kept going. Some attacked her with daggers, some with swords, and whoever lost exploded. Her wind protected her from the blasts.

We weren't out of the woods yet. If a god really was behind the bomb mechanisms, then there could be some fail safes installed too. There was also the possibility of a remote control, but they'd have already triggered that if it existed given the very real risk of this lady we were handling from getting taken. "Check for any false wires or second switches."

And it wouldn't be a stretch to say they were prepared to kill their allies if things took a turn for the worse.

I ran back towards the entrance as Gareth held off the violas alone.

Something landed behind me.

I turned around and saw a tall guy wearing an animal skull for a helmet.

He reached out with a deathly white arm to grab me.

" _Madness_ ," I called, and covered myself with black flames.

"Useless!" The word dripped with glee as he stepped closer in.

But a spear shaft hit him square in the head, breaking his helmet, and he flew towards the crystal in the middle of the room.

"Go, Thomas!" Finn gave chase to the figure who landed on his face.

Narvi was still working on cutting through the bandages and wiring, and she hadn't exploded yet. I dispelled Despair and resumed my escape. I chanced a look back and saw a robed guy chasing after me then a group of them heading for Narvi. Finn had already started clashing against the new guy, he had long white hair and even so far away, his eyes glowed an eerie green in the pale blue light.

"To think the Braver would find us now!" The man was losing ground to Finn, but his tone was still full of confidence. He ran wide around the captain who moved to intercept him, then leapt towards me.

The robed guy chasing after me stopped in his tracks, but I kept going.

Sword guy landed next to the robed guy and punched him through the chest, then Finn swept his spear and caught sword guy across the torso, casting him away.

The robed guy disintegrated to dust, leaving their clothes behind.

Wait, what?

"Let's see how you fair against this!" Sword guy put whatever it was he took from the robed guy into his mouth.

Then Finn landed next to him as his spear smashed down.

But sword guy caught the blow with the flat of his blade as the ground beneath him exploded into a web of cracks. He laughed. "Wonderful!"

I ran towards the discarded clothes and fished through them and found the bandolier of flame rocks. This was evidence for later, and at worst, an insurance policy in case others chased after me.

Finn blurred into a spectrum of thrusts and sword guy likewise became a flurry of slashes, but his sword was too slow to parry or defend, and he was easily filled with holes from Finn's onslaught.

The guy jumped back. "Still not enough, eh?" He turned tail and ran towards Narvi.

She ran towards Finn carrying the elf girl still strapped to the bombs, keeping her away from the people chasing her. Another squad of robed guys broke off from Aiz holding off the lot of them, these ones going towards Gareth and me.

The ground shook, and I saw Gareth had struck the earth, his whole body glowing yellow. Violas around him fell into the fissures but the robed guys coming for us hadn't lost their footing. I kept on running, making sure the trigger mechanism wasn't accidentally triggered.

Halfway to the cave entrance, I looked back and saw the robed guys gaining on me. With that much speed, they were at least on the higher end of level two. With three of them to boot. Not a lot of familias could output that much manpower and throw it away as expendable bombers. Then again, it was just as possible to have a few gods not declare the actual strength of their followers.

Breaking the rules had a thrill of their own after all.

Times like these were when I lamented my lack of range the most. The blast radii of those explosions exceeded the range of my magic and given the added fire aspect of my damaging spells, then blasting any of the robed guys was a bad idea. I could give up the bombs I had on me to maybe kill them, but with stats exceeding mine, getting away was gonna be a lot harder than I'd liked. One of the Ironhands saving my ass was my best bet.

The mouth of the cave exploded.

And out of it came four figures running towards us and getting chased by a green ass unicorn.

Man, this was just great. The unicorn was about thrice as tall as Riveria and a bulldozing powerhouse with god knew how much horsepower.

 _Again?! Really?! Not the time for that Tom!_

A brilliant green magic circle followed close behind Riveria with Daffyd and Brynmor just behind her. Cadoc shot straight towards me. The three chasing my ass were so close now, and I'd never wanted ranged magic quite as bad as now.

That's when the three exploded, the blast wave making my ears pop when it passed. Narvi was running towards me with the stripped-down elf girl, and then Finn flying towards Aiz back first as a laughing sword guy followed.

Narvi caught up to me and together we ran for Riveria and the rest. Cadoc doubled back to support his brothers.

Riveria let loose with three blasts of ice towards the unicorn, but it dodged between the winds then dashed forward straight for her. Daffyd threw her sideward to where Gareth was, and received the blow meant for her with his shield. It sent him straight up to the ceiling.

Cadoc and Brynmor latched onto the new monster by stabbing into its flesh but it buckled and kicked, and they were thrown off all the same. The horse ran like lightning towards where Aiz was, and I could just make out another humanoid figure riding the goddamn thing's back.

"There's someone on the horse!" I shouted.

Narvi passed the elf girl to me and ran towards Aiz and the others with her hand stretched out. " _Speak four times of folly and my strike shall ring true_! Geisl!"

Lightning shot from her finger tips with a narrow spread, most of it striking true at the next squad of bombers to break away from Aiz. The ensuing explosion occurred like the rest, but it freed up Aiz to cut down the last one she was fighting. They exploded right after she jumped away. These guys just didn't give up, and they were a lot sturdier than they let on.

The unicorn approached Aiz—who levelled her blade as her wind raged around her.

Finn dashed towards sword guy and his spear was blocked again, but Finn was still faster and more dexterous and even if sword guy's strength overwhelmed our captain, the guy still didn't hold a candle to the prowess of one who's reached the previously thought impossible. Sword guy started smoking from everywhere along his body as more and more wounds were opened all over him, and Finn kept going faster and faster, but the guy wasn't bleeding out despite their frantic fight.

That wasn't normal.

Everyone was engaged at the moment, with Gareth polishing off the rest of the violas. Riveria recovered enough to start casting again, her magic circle pulsating a brilliant red. I needed to get closer to her.

The naked elf in my arms was pale as hell and the bones in her ribs ran taut against her skin. Her hair was matted and clumped like it hadn't been washed in so long and she smelled just as bad. I'd been the butt of one of the elves' shampoo and soap runs before when Alicia dragged me to get her kin's shopping done for the week, and those ladies went through the stuff faster than the thirteenth floor could shit out a horde of hellhounds. We'd get our answers later.

Aiz's storm narrowed into her blade.

The unicorn thundered towards her.

She swung.

The creature's body was sliced from its chest up, its legs separating from under it and the whole thing crashed into the ground with a great flood of purplish blood. The figure riding its back jumped towards Aiz—and she clashed blades with some red clad person wielding a branched sword.

Aiz pushed the newcomer back just as Finn smacked sword guy at the back of his neck.

The newcomer lashed out with their sword and retaliated against Aiz, their roles reversed between them with Aiz giving ground after the newcomer got their second wind. Gareth moved to join Aiz, and Riveria hung back with her staff raised high.

"Damned horse," Daffyd said next to me. Blood trailed down his brow. "Hit harder than I thought." He shook his head and rolled his shoulders.

Cadoc and Brynmor took up my flanks, a little worse for wear but otherwise still kicking.

"We'll only get in the way now." Brynmor bit his lip.

Another shot of lightning left Narvi's hand and struck the newcomer's sword, but nothing happened. Aiz and the newcomer were still locked in their deadly dance. There weren't anymore robed figures, and the violas were all but gone as well.

The newcomer pushed Aiz back and ran towards Finn, then threw their sword at him. Aiz followed and lashed out with her wind like a madman, her blasts carving through the Dungeon's walls and floors wherever they passed. But the newcomer reached sword guy first who met them half-way.

Newcomer stuck their hand through sword guy's chest.

Finn and Aiz stopped in their tracks.

Narvi's lightning reached the newcomer but they extended their hand and blocked the magic head on. This from a level five who wasn't a pure spellcaster, but still a level five.

The newcomer put a hand to their mouth.

The two just watched.

That was when a large red magic circle appeared beneath the newcomer—which caused Aiz and Finn to run away as fast as they could before the entire space was engulfed in pillars of hellfire.

When the magic faded, a hole of was left behind where the newcomer was.

#

In hindsight, it was stupid of me to not have noticed when the cages disappeared.

Aiz checked the hole by blasting it with wind, but it went deeper than we all liked. Maybe even through to the nineteenth floor. After Riveria's grand spell, all of the fighting in the chamber stopped, with the only traces left being the remains of the people who blew themselves up. We didn't happen upon any discernable chunks with how thorough the explosions were, so that was a dead end. We also checked for their weapons but didn't find anything distinct. Even their personal effects were all just cheap crap from Rivira. As for the unicorn, we were able to get its stone—which was a large crystal the same size as my head and in the same scheme as the violas and viscum.

And for once, one of the new species dropped some loot: a bright green horn about as long as a jousting lance.

Before leaving for the surface we first hunted for a few bugbears so we could wrap the evidence we collected in fur to prevent any mishaps. The unicorn horn was too inconspicuous to transport on its own and carrying an unconscious elf through Rivira and the Dungeon entrance was bound to raise a few questions. The horn eventually made its way to Tsubaki, while the elf lady, all tied up and clothed now, sat behind a room in a storehouse Fels prepared.

"I have already healed her enough to be lucid," Fels said. He tossed me a key. "As promised, there's the payment, but I hope you can stay and help?" His face was concealed by the hood, but instead of hidden, it was like it turned it into a featureless black surface instead.

Gareth, Finn, Riveria, and I were the ones present for the exchange. Finn passed the dwarf the key and he left the storehouse. Daffyd was waiting outside with his brothers while Aiz and Narvi made their way home to pick up Loki. This was a big step towards our investigation into the recent happenings, and all these new monsters popping up didn't bode well for any of us in Orario.

"We want to know first hand as well," Finn said. "We have a lot at stake with this information, every little bit helps."

"I'll wait for Loki outside." Riveria turned to leave the storehouse.

"We shouldn't leave the lady alone," I said. "Did you check for any false teeth? She might've been hiding some poison."

The two there shook their heads.

"You make me wonder at times just how you became like that, Thomas," Fels said. "But you are right."

"He does that to a lot of people," Finn added.

Fels opened the door and the elf girl was sleeping soundly against her restraints. Her legs were tied to the stool while she hung from her wrists to a beam in the ceiling, she also had a length of rope compressing her elbows together. I told Fels to make sure her back was exposed and to ensure she couldn't brace herself against anything, the latter was so we could see if she had a status, and the former so it'd make it harder for her to struggle. I'd seen too many spy movies to know the smallest chance was big enough for those capable or desperate enough.

We walked into the room, and Finn walked towards the lady.

"She's awake," he said. He brought his hand to her chin and lifted her face. "You can stop pretending now."

The lady struggled against her gag, then crunched her abs to bring the stool she was tied to up to hit him but ended up flailing from where she hung instead. Overkill, perhaps, but it was necessary. There were all manners of denying us the information we wanted after all. She could bite her tongue or something. I wasn't about to take any chances.

We had a staring contest with the tied-up elf who kept on struggling despite her restraints. There was nothing to talk about and sharing any information between us would only weaken our position in front of her. Besides, we all knew she was most likely going to die after this whole ordeal, at best we could offer her a way out after. But we didn't really need her cooperation, Loki's godhood was enough for our purposes.

A few more minutes of eternity passed until the door opened to Loki, Riveria, and Aiz. The elf royal wasn't too pleased with the state of her kin, and Aiz wasn't approving of the treatment either. Which was understandable for all the wrong reasons. They took their spots around the room and surrounding the elf.

My goddess's eyes shone as she inspected the bound elf. "I didn't think you had it in you, Tom."

I shook my head. "Let's just get this over with."

Loki shrugged and went to our prisoner. Finn accompanied her. He held down the stool with one hand and removed her gag with the other. The elf spat at Loki, but Finn blocked it with the gag.

Loki's grin went from ear to ear with too much teeth. "Feisty, aren't you?" She grasped the elf's cheeks with a hand. "What is your name?"

The elf looked away. "Anette Vidr."

Loki hummed. "And whose god's familia are you part of?"

The elf shook her head, powerless to resist the power of a god. Mortals couldn't lie to the gods, was another rule the gods set up for this game they played. "T-thanatos." Tears fell when the word left her lips.

"What level are you?"

She strained her neck against letting out the truth. "One."

"Who were you working with?"

Her lips bled as she bit on them so hard. "W-we are the remnants of the revolutionaries."

The goddess laughed. "Just because you can't lie doesn't mean you have to tell the whole truth, eh?" She raised a brow. "Are you working with the Eviluz?"

The elf ground her teeth and squeezed out a, "Yes." Her shoulders drooped.

Loki's eyes shone with a sinister light. "What was inside those cages?"

"Monsters," the girl said in a daze.

"What was special about those monsters?"

"I don't know."

"What happened to the cages?"

"I don't know."

"Ask her who Revis is," Finn said.

Loki nodded. "Who is Revis?"

The elf's breaths were shallow and frantic. "She is her envoy."

"Who is this she?"

"Our salvation."

"What is the name of this she?"

"I don't know."

"Why were you in the pantry of the eighteenth floor?"

"We were the beginnings of a revolution."

"What is the goal of this revolution?"

"To be born anew."

Loki rolled her eyes. "Who was the leader of this revolution?"

"It was her."

"What is the name of this her?"

"I don't know."

"Is the leader of the revolution the same as the one you called your salvation?"

"Yes."

"How did you get a magic crystal?"

"I don't know."

The interrogation, rather, the extended question and answer session went on for a while, but the girl was too low on the organizational ladder to know any of the meatier bits. Loki went through all the iterations she could and was as specific as she could with the questions but at best, the same things we already got was all the girl knew.

At the end of it all, Fels asked that we left taking care of her to him. It was as easy as pulling out the crystal from her, but I guess he wanted to see for his own eyes. We had no reason not to, and to keep a prisoner wasn't in our style.

#

We returned to the manor after and went straight to Finn's study. The executives and I were there together with Loki. But Bete and the others had yet to return. Finn was sitting behind his desk, with Gareth and Riveria seated on either side of the two chairs in front of it. Loki was seated cross-legged over his table, Aiz was near the bookshelves with Narvi, Daffyd stood behind Gareth, and I sat on the floor.

Finn rubbed his temples. "So, where to start?"

Loki raised her hand. "From henceforth, we shall refer to the unicorn as a Vivace."

"You're really going along with a v-theme here," I said.

She nodded all proud to herself.

"Monster names aside," Finn said. "We've confirmed that the Eviluz are still active, and that they're working with monsters." He shook his head. "And even worse is how they all had crystals attached to their chests."

It went without saying how they also disintegrated on losing said crystal. "We've yet to see any people shaped monsters born from the walls, but from what we've seen with Anette, they were most likely made." Call it rotten that she didn't know how she got her crystal, but with how thorough things have been so far, it made sense how she didn't.

"Aye," Gareth added. He wasn't smiling. "The girl Finn knocked out was a level one, but Aiz said they all were at least level two." That was another thing. We didn't know the extents of Anette's abilities since the fight with her ended so fast, and we weren't about to release her restraints either just to find out. But it stood to reason that the crystal allowed them to perform beyond their level.

"They were also willing to die for this revolution of their, enough to pull the triggers themselves." Anette was a full-blown cultist from what I saw. Her belief in their cause was unshakeable, and she didn't give two shits about all the holes in what she knew.

Aiz narrowed her eyes. "Revis… ate the other person's crystal. And grew stronger."

"Just like a monster," Narvi said.

"That guy too," Finn said. "He wasn't as good as he thought himself, but he was stupidly strong." Sword guy and Revis both ate magic stones and bumped up in power. The former enough to overpower Finn, the latter to push back both him and Aiz together. That was a level six and a seven working together to bring someone down, and still she managed to get away.

"We know Thanatos is a member of Eviluz," Loki said. "Now we just need to find him, I'll get Freya to help out." This was another matter we'd have to handle with delicacy. The gods had an incident with the Eviluz before, but to have a resurgence of them now meant they had the confidence to stage another attempt at whatever their goal was. Judging from what Anette at best told us and the last few incidents, the goal was to destroy Orario, but why wasn't clear yet. It was her will, she said. But that was it.

"The cages were another matter," Riveria added. "There were monsters in them but no one saw how they disappeared during the battle. They were either destroyed or hidden away, but when we searched the chamber we didn't find any hidden passages." All the monsters we saw came from different floors and were of different sizes. None of them had any features linking them to one another, and they also weren't used at all in the defense of the chamber.

"I'd have expected they'd at least release them even if they weren't tamed yet." It was also possible they were being used as food for their crystals, but then why keep something as small as a goblin? And the eighteenth floor already had a healthy helping of nineteenth floor monsters anyway.

"I agree," Daffyd said. "And then that damned unicorn hit me into the ceiling. It tore through the cave we came from without warning, it was too late once we heard it coming."

"Indeed," Riveria added. "The earth churned before it like soft dirt."

"We can't forget this is also the first time one of the new species we encountered drop some loot," I said. We stood to lean from their drops, like how much Adamantium they had which could give us a better idea of how deep they came from. Their properties would also teach us if they had any elemental weaknesses, like how monsters from the twenty-fourth to twenty-seventh floor were more susceptible to lightning element magic.

I wasn't about to bother scrutinizing how lightning was an element, every bit of advantage I could get against the Dungeon was important.

"Aiz," Loki said, "you mind giving that horn to Thomas here? He could use the extra protection."

The blonde nodded. "I… don't mind."

"And last of all," Finn said.

Aiz narrowed her eyes at him. He met her gaze, and she nodded.

He took a deep breath. "Revis told Aiz to meet her at the fifty-ninth floor."

"Wait, Aiz specifically?" Well wasn't that a big ass flag even if I didn't know any better. Aiz was a bigger player in this world than I thought, for her to be singled out like that by a conspiracy that threatened to be as large as the mystery behind the Dungeon itself. People shaped monsters, bright green ones whom no one had ever seen before, and now someone I was so close to, physically that is, got called out from everyone else who went down that Dungeon just to be issued a personal invitation.

If Daffyd and Narvi were surprised, then I couldn't see it. But Finn, Riveria, Gareth, and Loki surely already knew. That much I'd seen before, and that crystal thing too. Who was Aiz anyway?

The blonde nodded. "Yes, she… said that I…" Aiz looked Riveria's way. "I would find answers… there."

Loki stood from the desk. "I'll fill you three in on things later."

I raised my hand. "You don't if she doesn't want to." My obsession with her matters wasn't related to my own predicament, and even if I found out what was bothering her it didn't guarantee me a clue on my own. At best I might be able to offer something from my side. But unless Aiz herself asked, then it was better I didn't do anything just yet. Things have taken me closer to her secret already, forcing it now could end up working for the worse.

"Thank you," Aiz said.

Narvi sighed out loud. "We've been with you guys long enough, whatever's bothering Aiz is her business. We'll listen if and when you're ready."

"Agreed," Daffyd added.

Finn clapped his hands. "That settles it then," he said. "Our deepest floor before was the fifty-eighth so this coincides with our purposes. And given what we'd seen so far, it'd be in our best interests to prepare accordingly."

"Is everyone in agreement then?" Loki raised her fist. "Our main objective for the expedition this time around is to track down Aiz's lead."

No one objected to the proposal, and Aiz had a small smile as the meeting came to a close.


	18. Vol 2 Chapter 5

**Author's Note:**

Hi all,

Thank you for following Munchkin Oratoria all this while, but sadly, this will be the last update of this current version of the story.

I am currently rewriting it with a more polished timeline and much more structure. It might be better, it might not. Too early to say, but I personally am much happier with how it's turning out so far. Some parts will be changed from here and some parts will be added.

If you'd read this far, it wouldn't be a spoiler to say Finn reaching level 7 will be kept in that iteration of the fic. Meh. There were some good points here, but it remains a fact that this fic was not planned at all. Seriously. I was posting chapters as soon as I finished them so I eventually struggled to get any proper content out since I literally didn't know where the fic was going.

Anyway, stick around (maybe) for the rewrite.

* * *

 **Volume 2**

 **Chapter 5**

Bete and the twins' return brought our fighting strength back to full. And with it, the mission to clear the pantries of any issues was set to full tilt. Gareth, Finn, and I were to meet with Tsubaki later to check up on our orders, while Aiz and the others were to stock up on some more potions for this little excursion. We were also going to bring a few more level fours for support—since I was to hold back together with them—to make sure we could deal with the lower floors better even if we were going down with a larger group.

The deepest floor I'd ever gone was the twenty-seventh, against my wishes and better judgement, but my fellow level twos like Riine and Ruth had gone as deep as the fiftieth before during the expeditions they were on. So yeah, I was still lacking in the experience department, but I'd rather see it now with less at stake than during the thing itself. We still had eleven more days until the big day and barring any major mishaps within these next few, then we'd stop at whatever we'd accomplished and focus on the bigger matter: Reaching the fifty-ninth floor to meet this Revis person's challenge for Aiz.

However, before things could spiral out of control like they usually did, first on today's to-do list was to cash in on the last few days' exilia.

I was on my belly against Loki's bed while she straddled me to update my status, my back bared to her as the room glowed its usual blue. She'd changed her sheets out for some dark grey but just as smooth and soft ones, and this time around they smelled of lemongrass.

"Tom?" Loki was holding that bloody red grimoire against my face from behind. "I wasn't kidding when I said you can have it you know. I meant that."

Even if we shared parts of our consciousness right now, some things were still best said with words. To glean each other's thoughts was as chaotic as it went with the both of us being who we were, and it helped keep the conversations on track. "And I meant it too when I said I shouldn't have it."

"I get that." Loki's finger danced about in little circles, as if the movements of the cosmos went in time with her scribbling. "But I also get that you want it, and we can afford to now."

Fels's payment came in the usual in-kind manner he used to pretend he wasn't involved with the Guild, and it included another couple of grimoires. Convenient, yes, but trustworthy? Not really. We were aligned towards the same goals for now, rather, our goals were more or less on tangents, but we had no guarantee that would stay the same even in the near future. Our colleague today could just as easily become the enemy of tomorrow, and good will was never just good will when bigger things were at stake. "We can't rely on someone like that, not when they're not one of us."

"I'm still your goddess you know." She put the grimoire down on the bed and pinched my cheek with her now free hand. "You're supposed to be coming to me for guidance and stuff, not having a sober argument with me on the pros and cons of my beefing you up."

I raised a finger. "We're not discussing the jacking up here. Instead, its accepting something out of the ordinary in terms of compensation from a client we have a muddy working relationship with. Hell, the only reason we're even involved with the guy is because of my not so bright idea of sniffing him out and succeeding."

"Patience is a virtue, Tom." Loki said all smug while ruffling my hair. "You wanted to get something from seeking him out, and now you want to say no to the fruits of your effort?"

"Bah, sophistry! And I'm plenty strong on my own already, where else have you seen anyone with five skills, huh?" For it was the price of ultimate responsibility, to be that with whom no higher agency stood by.

"Stop using Finn as a benchmark." Her palms enclosed on my back as the light receded. "Just because you two have five both doesn't make you as good as he is, not even close."

She got off of me and sat by the mattress, and I sat up to face her. Loki passed me my shirt and presented the sheet of paper she jotted down as I dressed myself.

There wasn't anything new save for the updates to my basic abilities. "Hmm, things have slowed down, eh?"

"It's like you don't give a crap about how much exilia people your level get on average." Loki was shaking her head. "Then again, this coming from the guy who levelled up in twelve days…" Her eyes were smiling, betraying the rueful tone. "I'm so gonna milk this during the Denatus."

And there it was, Loki as usual. "Are you sure it won't screw with anything?" Who the hell was I kidding, if all the gods were like Loki—and that was a scary thought—then it was going to no matter what. What it boiled down to then was how hard shit hit the fan and where would it end up in.

Loki put a finger on my nose. "We have a level seven, Tom." She shrugged. "You've seen Finn throw an axe larger than a sixteen-wheeler and use it himself, not a lot of people can stand up to that." Loki snorted. "Ottar is the only other level seven in Orario, and they're pretty firmly on our side. For now."

The very thought of Freya going after us sent a chill down my spine. And it was exactly because she had way more first-class adventurers than us by virtue of those built-in scouters of hers. But as long as we kept her appeased, then nothing ought to go too wrong. Hopefully. "That doesn't make me feel better."

Loki presented me the grimoire. "Hence why you ought to take your chances every time."

"I can't take it all for myself Loki," I said. "Even if I'm actually a greedy person deep down inside, I still understand when the good of the many should take precedence."

She hung her head. "That's just something you tell yourself to make you feel better. It's a lot better for you and your falna if you stay true to your desires Tom. A conservative stance won't net you the trouble you need to face adversity."

"You're not wrong." I couldn't refute that one bit, but still. It was the principle of the matter. I wasn't as sincere about wanting to help the others by giving up this grimoire, but to do so I believed would net the best benefits in the long run both for me and the familia. I was ultimately alone in my endeavor to find a way home, but that didn't mean I had to go through everything without help.

"And I'm telling you now that I'm absolving you of responsibility if you take this grimoire." She pushed it closer to me. "Tom, you've been an irregular from the start, the worst that could happen with my getting you to try out this grimoire is we waste one. And it's fine. We have another two already waiting for owners, and if it weren't for your getting in touch with Fels in the first place, then the familia wouldn't have gained them either."

I sighed. She'd already made up her mind, and to keep on fighting would only invite more of her pestering. Yes, I didn't want to rely on something unverified, but to refuse any harder now when she'd already offered to take full ownership of the act would be foolish. "Man, and to think I resolved not to use this damned thing like just a couple days ago."

I received the grimoire she offered, the weight of it heavy in my hands and even the air ground to a standstill. This was, for all intents and purposes, a shortcut to power. Was this the next thing on my legend? When the hero finally accepted the boon from the wise old man—lady. There was only one way to find out.

"Well?" Loki smirked. "It only works if you open it up."

My fingers drew a tingling line against the book's spine. Here in my hands was a power unknown, and one I would take into myself. Would it succeed? Would it help? Was it the right thing to do? My greed didn't care, my conscience was unsettled, and logic wasn't even paying attention. "How do these things work anyway? I mean, if I was going to hack my falna into coughing up some more magic, then I at least ought to know what I'm getting into, right?"

Loki rolled her eyes. "Just think of it like digging for gold, this thing scours your soul for any traces of magic and draws it out to the surface and voila! Instant magic!"

"Alright," I said with a shaky breath. "How do I do this?"

"You just have to read it."

"Huh, okay. Sure." I slowly opened the heavy cover, the thick red leather creaking the smallest bit.

The book opened into a wall of text.

#

 _I awoke to an unholy racket._

 _I scrambled out of bed as my hand shot towards the bedside table and hit the snooze on my phone. It was seven in the morning, work didn't start until nine, and I needed a solid hour to cut through the morning traffic. I ought to make it to the office with enough time to spare for any last-minute preparations for that godawful meeting later. But I needed every second I could squeeze out to make sure we were bullet proof against those bastards in compliance._

 _A quick shower and few more minutes later, I shot out of my apartment with a fire under my ass. I needed to get to the city proper within the next thirty minutes or else I was screwed for the next two hours, and with it, the rest of that proposal. Breakfast would have to wait._

 _What mattered more was I reached the first bus of the morning. I held my breath back and stepped into the busy street, light as a feather and to a lively pace. Big strides brought me forward and fast, accelerating to as far as I could within seconds._

 _I dodged a guy unloading stuff from a delivery truck before ducking down and barely missing a paper boy on his bike my hurried pace unbroken. Time was of the essence, and all these people walking along minding their own business were all in the way._

 _It was like a trance, keeping vigilant watch of every moving body as they all went on with their lives with me moving as best as I saw fit to weave in and out of the little gaps the sea of people made. A quick side step here to avoid the running kid, raise my elbow there to avoid that nice lady's bag, twist my hip and get my backpack out of the way of that fire hydrant, it was the dance of the morning commute._

#

I awoke to the sting of a hard slap.

And then there was Loki. "What the hell was that just now?" My hands checked the rest of my person, the sensation of wearing a fresh suit still lingering on my memories. I swear my fingers still had the phantom taper of the plastic buttons, and my cheeks were still cold from the bracing August wind. The whole thing was just like any other day back in my old life. My real life.

Something sank with the rest of my gut.

Loki took my face in her hands. "I guess it worked."

"I'm sorry, what?"

She inched her face closer to mine. "You're looking a little pale, Tom."

I let out a shaky breath. "I… thought I was back home."

Loki pursed her lips. "Ah." She ran her hands down from my cheeks to my shoulders, rubbing against them a few times as she cooed against my ear. "I see."

I closed my eyes and grasped at the sensations slipping from my fingers, the baking bread by the deli, the honking of the morning rush hour, the grit of asphalt against my soles… these were the small things that made up my daily life. The things that came together to bring about what I knew and now missed.

I rubbed away the goose bumps. "That must've been the magic shit?"

She stared into my eyes. "Yeah, that's usually how you know it worked." Loki brought her hand to my cheek. "You sure you're alright?"

I placed my palm above hers. "I will be in a bit."

"I didn't expect it to pull your memories out like that." She leaned closer. "Sorry."

I took another deep breath. "I'm also guessing this thing that happens isn't always the same thing?"

Loki nodded. "Narvi said she saw something about her dreams, Daffyd and his brothers too. Though Rakta went on about some really psychedelic crap, ah, and Lili said she saw Finn." She took the grimoire by my feet and opened it, the pages all clean of writing. "Everyone always sees something different."

She rose from her seated position on the bed to kneel on the mattress. "I'll need to update your status again to see what you got."

#

 **Level 2**

Strength = H 103

Endurance = H 180

Dexterity = H 174

Agility = H 101

Magic = G 215

Madness Spectrum = H

Tranquil Intervention = H

World Walker = H

Fated Actor = H

Butcher = I

 **Magic**

 _Answered Prayer_

Chantless Magic

 _Despair_

"Madness"

 _Saudade_

"Taken from the peace of home / I now stand beyond the veil / The aberrant demands reparation"

 _Flow_

Chantless Magic.

 **Skill**

Babel Jack = Allows automatic translation of written and verbal information to some understandable form to the user.

Enabler = Increases magic by an exceptional amount in a pinch and causes magic damage to siphon life force.

Mania = Increases endurance the longer one stays in battle and gradually wears off after.

Lævateinn = Adds a fire element to all attack magics.

Vindicta = Momentarily increases strength when retaliating against an attacker, the higher the damage received, the stronger the effect.

#

"Congratulations, Tom." She wiped away her usual grin. "You may be right about your magic slots after all."

She passed me another sheet of paper. And there it was: Flow. It didn't take a genius to figure out this didn't mean anything close to something meant for combat, and neither did it hint at warping or anything. "Huh, well, if the vision I saw was anything to go by, then I might have some idea of how this goes…"

Loki raised her brows. "Really? With magic?" She scratched her head. "But you never had any experience with magic before. Before now, I mean."

It was a familiar sensation, though one I'd never had to call on here. The bustle was never as bad as back in the city, and in the heat of battle, I doubt it'd be as much use as something like a proper way to dodge. Besides, I was never one for being graceful under that much pressure. "I still can't help but feel I'm being encouraged to get into more gruesome fights though."

Loki huffed out a big sigh. "You went down that route yourself. And what's up with you having something like this anyway? That thing I saw, you moving about like that, that's not something normal people do."

I pursed my lips. "Who're you to say what's normal and not? Besides, it was fun for me, and it did help a lot with getting through foot traffic." Weaving in and out of the thick of battle was an obvious application, but was it really going to behave like I thought it would?

Loki shrugged. "Best get a move on with figuring that out then."

On a whim, I called on that familiar sensation, like stepping back to take a look at the bigger picture and let the scenery play on the back burner. I let the air swell in my chest as a lightness played along my limbs—but I didn't have any visual or tactile cues if anything changed.

Loki snapped her fingers three times. "I think we should focus more on the getting a fourth spell deal here, Tom."

"Yeah, I just used another slot up and I don't even know if I have another one left."

"You're not wrong…" Loki sighed, then shrugged. "Eh, you'll get to try it out later anyway, come on, we should let Riveria know first. Two thousand Varis says she'll get her panties in a knot over this."

#

We called in a quick meeting in Finn's room with those in the house, namely, the top executives and Lefiya since the former had their own things to do after this thing I had with Loki, and the latter since she was hitting the books.

Finn set down the sheet of paper that had my stats on them against his desk. Riveria was seated on the chair to his right. She took it back the moment he let his guard down, and Gareth sat opposite her and to Finn's left. He inched his chair away from the elf as she read it over and over again.

"Four magic slots." The captain steepled his fingers above his desk. "It's Thomas we're talking about here, so I'm already numb to the surprises." He met my eyes. "Uhh, congratulations?"

Riveria stood from her seat, my stat sheet crumpled in her grip. "No Finn, this is not one of those things we'll just let slide! Four magic slots! This goes against this world's rules!" She was was breathing hard. "And another chantless magic? This is…" She sat back down. "Just so preposterous…"

Lefiya's eyes darted between me and Riveria before she raised her hand. "I'm just as shocked as well, true chantless magic like what Thomas has is unprecedented, and to think he now might have two." A true chantless spell was magic that needed no words to be invoked at all, unlike Despair or the bigger spells like Lefiya's Fusilade Fallarica or Riveria's Vas Windheim. Instead, it was the one I used to communicate with Loki which I could activate without calling its name, as well as deactivate whenever I wished to.

And from what it looked like on my stat sheet, Flow followed the same format.

"Okay, and from how you two are looking at me, I'm guessing this is different from how you both can cast more than three spells?" They were our two leading experts in the familia on magic since Aiz didn't count even if she could compare in strength. The girl was a muscle head… mana head? All she cared about her magic was that it worked to let her beat the monsters harder, but these two actually gave a damn about how magic worked. The other elven mages knew their stuff too, but these two took it beyond that. Lefiya levelled up from the insights she gleaned about her own magical workings through her studies, while Riveria, a high elf, was the closest this world had to the spirits of old who commanded magic as easily as they could breathe or talk.

Lefiya looked like she'd seen a ghost, while Riveria looked like said ghost started tap dancing in front of her. The high elf shook her head with a deliberate arc.

"Not even close," Loki said.

Lefiya hummed. "Thomas, lady Riveria has three spells, each one a grand incantation she could split into three parts each. Her Chant Connect allows her to use these subspells on their own or together depending on how she connects them, and because of those combinations, she can cast her three magics nine ways."

I nodded. So it was like a mix and match thing then. "I sort of get it."

She continued, "I, on the other hand, have a third spell that allows me to summon the magic of another elf. I cast my Elf Ring to open the connection my falna made with another, and this in turn allows me to use their magic so long as I know their chant and the magic's effect." Lefiya pointed at me. "But you"—she scratched her cheek—"you, _have_ four spells. It's a big difference with _can cast_ more than three."

I ran a hand through my hair. "And if my theory is right, then I might be able to house another."

Riveria squinted at me. "Explain."

I told them about my theory on how _I_ actually had just one spell and that the other two were from something else before I got this next one, thus my now having two and two. Loki chimed in on what she was able to glean from my falna, the something about Despair originating from my passing between the worlds or something, and the communication magic as something more of a side-effect of the connection I shared with her through my falna. The visions I was getting from her was a part of that connection.

By the end of it all, the two elves were a lot more upset than before.

"Well?" I asked with a wince. It was a good thing then how the other executives were still out to do their own things, else this would've been a bigger commotion than it had to be.

Riveria raised her hand. "Why did I only hear about this now?"

Loki strained to contain the smile that wanted to break out of her mug. I narrowed my eyes at her. She shook her head with difficulty.

The high elf raised a brow at her, then at me.

Loki slumped down, her smile now in full view. I'm sorry, she mouthed. The idiot looked Riveria straight, and said, "You never asked."

The armrest of Riveria's chair exploded into a mess of splinters. Gareth's attention was everywhere else but this conversation, while Lefiya and Finn both groaned.

The high elf cleared her throat, one hand still messy with wood dust. "These are things the people you asked to study the matter should, Loki."

Our goddess dropped the stupid look. "Don't get me wrong, I didn't do it without reason." Riveria was having none of it so Loki raised her hands to placate her. "I wasn't sure if my speculations were worth the attention at the time, not until now."

The two elves sighed.

"All this talk of having and ability and knowledge is passing over my head. I get what you all mean, I believe, or at least, I'll assume what I understand to be what you mean, but does my having mean I can't learn more?" Because if there really was a way to cast magic without it being part of the falna, then I still had hope.

"It's not that simple, Tom." Riveria massaged her temples. "There's a reason the way of ancient magics are all but obsolete now. And to have you still want to learn more… won't be so easy. For a human that is. Your kind was never gifted in magic, and you're an even stranger case since you needed your falna to grant you magic instead of having the potential to develop it like the humans of our world. Our best bet would maybe to give you another grimoire." She looked at Loki. "Let's just get it over with now."

Loki put on that shit eating grin she usually had when she was about to do something stupid. The prick slithered over to the high elf. "Is my favorite elf-chan having a hissy fit?"

Riveria's cheek twitched. "We got another two grimoires, let's just give Tom another one."

Gareth was about to say something but held his tongue, and Finn subtly shook his head at the dwarf.

"Wait, shouldn't we save this potential last slot first? I'd rather not waste a chance at an easy solution." I shook my head. "And before that, we should get another few grimoires once we complete Fels's mission. Maybe. But aren't those better left to the level fours instead? It'd help us all out better in the long run."

Loki stuck her tongue out. "You mean it'll help _you_ better in the long run."

I raised both hands. "I won't refute that."

Gareth and Lefiya shared a look.

"Still, Thomas has a point." Finn pursed his lips. "It still feels weird to say that…"

Gareth hummed. "Aye, it is."

"I'm dismayed at how Thomas here just keeps on upending what we know." Lefiya sighed. "First was levelling up, and now this?"

"True, but at what cost?" Finn hunched his shoulders. "I can't imagine anything further than the trip I had to make from my home town to here, and Thomas here came from somewhere unfathomably further than that."

"Aye," Gareth added. "But we can't deny it didn't do us all a bit of good." He shot a look Finn's way. "You and Lefiya included."

The elf grimaced and the parrum didn't back down.

Riveria turned to Loki with a snap while pointing at me, her nose crinkled "And how is this guy saying no to a free grimoire?"

Loki threw her arms up. "I know right? A proper person should be either flustered or completely dumbfounded at receiving such an honor!"

"No, wait, that's not the point." I gestured at Finn. "Shouldn't you be the voice of reason here?"

The captain raised an eyebrow at me. "Really? You're calling me out on this? What, you think I know most of the things I'm doing all the time?" He rested his chin against his wrist. "You'd be surprised how much people assume you've got everything together as long as you smile and rub your chin." Finn winked at me. "If Loki wants to give you the grimoire, I say why not!"

Gareth frowned at him. "I liked you better when you were stingy, you cheeky parrum."

Lefiya scratched her head. "And Tom, we can afford to buy grimoires in Altena too if we need to," she said. "And they aren't as great as everyone makes them out to be. I'm not so sure what you're worried about."

"That… what? Weren't grimoires like these heaven and earth sorts of deals."

The young elf shook her head. "Think about it, grimoires are amazing for being able to force magic out of someone, but they are unnatural, and like you've experienced, have unpredictable results."

I ran a hand against my forehead. "A fair point."

She continued, "In comparison, us native magic bearers are able to train towards a particular branch of magic using the spells of old if we wished, its just that casting with the aid of the falna is much simpler in execution and less risky." She shuddered. "It's never easy to learn of how many scholars from the ancient times died because of ignis fatui…"

"Okay, so you give up choice for… easy magic, makes sense. But does that mean I can use it myself? I mean to train towards something I want and then to use a grimoire to finish off the rest of the process?" Theoretical know-how from two of Orario's best and brightest was a lot to go on, but it was still all I had going for me right now. I still had the lead Fels gave me though, that should be worth a good look now that these two were back.

Riveria cleared her throat. "Only those blessed with great fortune ever receive anything worth of note, and that's also why using a grimoire on a level one or two isn't always the best thing to do since it relies on a foundation to create something… or else, you end up wasting a magic slot for something not even worth your time."

"That's also why us elves do not like them," Lefiya added. "There have been cases of grimoires granting… less savory spells, weak ones that weren't worth the mind it took to cast them. Just imagine all that investment wasted on something that could maybe only generate a little bit of steam for a ten verse long chant."

All that wasn't comforting in the slightest. "Hopefully my Flow isn't as big a waste as I think it is. And if it's not great for lower level adventurers, how come Lili got one?"

Loki put a hand on my shoulder. "That girl's a lot stronger than she lets on, it takes character to go through what she did, Tom."

"That's also why I asked Loki to give her one," Finn said. "Let's just keep this between ourselves, alright? I wanted to see if she had the drive to reach for something." He was looking at me, but it would've been an easy mistake to say he was looking somewhere else much further. "And she did."

"Back on topic people," Riveria said with a clap of her hands. "This new magic of yours, what did you see and what do you think it is?"

"For it to have been pulled out of someone like you," Lefiya said with huff. "I wouldn't be surprised if it were another phenomenal matter." She wasn't thrilled in the slightest.

I scratched my head, then tried my best at explaining to them what I was doing in the vision and how I sort of brought about that sensation whenever I called on that state.

"Really? I didn't think you had that in you, Tom." Finn had an amused look to him. "You should talk to Aiz."

"Aye," Gareth added. "That girl's magic sounds the same." He nodded.

"Similar to hers, you say." Riveria was stroking her chin. "It's never a dull moment with you, is it, Tom?"

"B-but Aiz!" Lefiya looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

Loki snickered like a hormonal teen. Then stopped and shot me the coldest glare. "Don't you dare, Tom." Her eyes had a fire behind them.

I pinched her cheek. "Dammit Loki! You're the first one I explained this to!"

#

With Loki reduced to a squawking mess, Riveria and Lefiya said they'd look into the matter more while Gareth, Finn, and I made the trip to Tsubaki's after. It wasn't much of a meeting except to check for the progress on the Durandals, as well as do a fitting for my armor and weapons.

We had a lot on our to-do list for today, so we finished our main objective as soon as we could. I also brought up with Tsubaki the two-handed hammer-axe I wanted, as well as a gladius so I could return Gareth's short sword already. As great as it was, the thing was only meant to go as far as the eighteenth floor. The wear and tear it suffered from the few times I went beyond the nineteenth took out a lot from it and my war hammer. I was bound to replace them sooner or later, and better now before the precious thing broke.

It was Aiz's sword before I used it after all.

Thanks to the recent additions to our finances, these orders from Hephaestus familia brought us close but not fully in the red. Thirty magic swords and five Durandals plus a first class set of armor did not come cheap. Also, the profits we got for nabbing Fels's cooperation more than paid for the stuff I commissioned, though it still left a sizeable debt for the ones left over. Still, it wasn't bad for someone who didn't have a single Varis to his name just a few days ago.

Gareth and Tsubaki asked if I had any suggestions for the former's new weapon since I had a knack for architecture that lent itself well to bodily harm, rather, I had knowledge the gods might've known but found too boring to share with the rest of the world. I drew up a few sketches of some axe designs I knew: like a bearded axe, the executioner's axe, the tomahawk, hell, even a poleaxe.

At the end of it, Gareth settled for a supersized version of my hammer-axe with a big ass emphasis on mass. It was about as large as Finn if the guy crouched down once Tsubaki drew it up, and it reminded me of the Monster Hunter hammers I never got to learn to use. Tsubaki, however, liked the idea of the poleaxe. It was a straightforward weapon that could be used for multiple situations, and as a polearm, the reach and leverage it provided lent well to dealing with larger monsters while saving up on precious material.

With the meeting all done, we went back to the manor to meet up with everyone and Loki to see us off. And seeing how I got a new spell, I was exempt for the time being from supporter duties until I learned how to use it, and hopefully it wasn't too useless like those horror stories Lefiya brought up.

Our group consisted of the executives and a few level fours: Gareth, Riveria, Finn, then Aiz, Bete, Tione and Tiona, Daffyd, Narvi, then Lefiya, Alicia, Cruz, Brynmor, Cadoc, and finally, me. It was all the executives minus one Rakta as the house sitter. These budding romances tended to get in the way of life or death struggles from what the oldies experienced, and it was for the best they got to enjoy their time together first as well. But try as Loki might to hide her intentions, we all knew she was letting the girl and Raul find their way around each other better first, passion was always nice however one found it.

Except if it was as a serial killer. That was just wrong.

I stood at the passage leading down to the twenty-fifth, the sounds and smells of the forest giving way to the running burble of flowing water and the low lying earthy vapors that dampened the skin.

We rechecked the pantry in the eighteenth floor where we found the Eviluz and found nothing, it would've been bad form if they were there again so props for at least knowing enough not to keep the same base of operations after getting found out. The nineteenth through twenty-fourth floor pantries also didn't have any of our new monster species, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Gareth gave me a pat on the back as he went ahead with the others, while Narvi was the one to pull me into the tunnel. Our formation had Aiz and Tiona at the front with Tione and Bete right behind them. Finn, Gareth, and Riveria took the middle with the level fours and Narvi and me, while the Ironhands brought up the rear.

"This will be my first proper trip down here." The twenty-seventh floor made a bitch of me when I ended up there the first time. I remembered the threat of death looming and churning with each second, the fear from each monster and attack that would've killed me twice over had my endurance faltered or my focus failed, and it was only thanks to covering myself with my magic that I was able to survive the ordeal.

Narvi waved her hand dismissively. "You'll be just fine, this isn't your first time down here anyway."

That was a level and a few days ago, and even with the jump in status, I still wasn't anywhere near the minimum safe zone. The guild set a minimum level and status for the floors on a solo basis. But these were just guidelines really, not like they could enforce restrictions anyway.

Level ones were advised to stay within the first to twelfth floors, and the lower one went the higher one's stats ought to be. At the twelfth, the minimum safe stat was a B on either endurance or agility. And to better put things into perspective, it took a level four with at least a B in endurance or agility to solo the twenty-fifth to the twenty-seventh, but that bumped up to a high five with an A in either magic or strength and a B for agility or endurance if the Amphisbaena, that double-headed Lagiarcus-looking thing, was present.

I shuddered at the thought. "That was a disaster."

Narvi gave a lopsided smile. "You're not wrong, but your complaining here is still proof of your strength, Tom. You should be a little prouder."

The girl in the silver cuirass walked with me through the tunnel filled with glowing green mushrooms. The light reflected off her polished armor with the different hues of the surrounding rock and moss. Moisture collected along the walls, drops of dew glistening against the bright glow and magnifying the subtle blue veins of lichen. The air near the ground was cooler than the rest of the passage, a refreshing change from the near tropical feel of the previous floors.

We exited the tunnel to an area filled with little round pools, some as small as a meter in diameter, and some maybe as large as ten or eleven. They were all in different heights, but all the stone basins were uniform in width thickness, just enough to walk on. More of the glowing blue moss lined the mouths of the pools, the water in them all crystal-clear, and rounded rocks dotted the surface of some pools, their foot-wide platforms forming winding paths through the uneven expanse.

Narvi hopped to a stone step and turned back. "Make sure not to fall into any of the pools, some of them run deep and can end up transporting you over to the great waterfall over there." She pointed to our left, and I saw the other side of the floor wrap around this large empty space.

Parts of the scenery as we fell before played back all at once. We were on the twenty-fifth which had the round pools, and then the twenty-sixth would follow with those sprawling swirling of rapids that twisted and turned to different paths, eventually leading to the twenty-seventh which was basically a lake that the great waterfall fed into. The unending din I'd been hearing all this time was really the distant thundering of the waterfall hitting the bottom of the basin from so far away mixed in with, I guess the rapids further down. It also went without saying how many untold horrors lurked just outside our notice in the different bodies of water around us.

"I don't have any plans of taking a swim." I followed the path she took with the hopping stones.

She pointed at a different stone when we next landed. "Don't step on the stones without any of the moss, chances are high those are traps that plunge you into the pool."

We had yet to see any monsters, and knowing my track record, it was only a matter of time. "How bad is it to fall into one of these anyway?"

The girl grimaced. "Pretty bad. Some of them have chambers where monsters spawn in, some of them have a flow somewhere deeper in them that lead to the waterfall, and the worst of them have spikes and other nasty things down at the bottom." She scrunched up her nose. "Though that also means some of them have a lot of junk piled up, mostly from people who died." Narvi shook her head. "A few of the more opportunistic people from Rivira find a lot of success with reclaiming adamantium down here, and the drops of the mermaid monsters also make for an easy on the go source of healing."

I almost slipped on the moss covered stone step. "Did you say mermaids?"

"Please don't be one of _those_ people…" Narvi grimaced at me. "It pains me how a lot of high paying quests ask for a live and tamed mermaid."

"People never change then." I scratched my head. "And, are we talking mermaid meat here?"

Narvi cocked her head back. "You mean… to eat monster flesh?" She scrunched her brows. "That's… new, but no. Mermaid blood is what they drop. And it's not bad on its own."

the two of us traced the edge of a large pool as we followed behind Riveria. Daffyd was at the very end of the formation with Brynmor and Cadoc looking out for him, the three brothers moving with a clockwork like precision. "If its their blood they drop, then can you like, bite one and suck out the contents?"

She put on a sheepish smile. "I should really remember to tell you these things with a lot more caution." Narvi massaged her temples. "Please don't try that."

"Eh? Then how do you collect the blood?"

Narvi helped me cross a too wide pool, and from it saw the two halves of a carcass floating on the water. It was a surprisingly human-like upper body, female, and a fish tail half, just like I usually saw on tv. The body was face-down so I couldn't get a good look, but I saw its bluish blood raise itself from the water like globules of oil. "There's your answer, ah, but that's not what you want. Mermaid blood drops glow a little purple and the usually form as one large blob on the water."

Our path took us near the edge of the floor, the great waterfall's roar a little louder but still nothing like the raging maelstrom at the bottom. I chanced a look over the ledge, and the parallax of the sheer dizzying height made my jimmies rise so high up that I almost felt my toes leave the ground. The lake we fought that great battle in was nothing but a little basin from all the way here. Narvi hopped to the next ring, despite it being a few feet away, the innate fear of being so close wouldn't leave.

I couldn't put it out of mind, that great pit calling from the bottom of my gut, it dared me to jump. It was the grim fascination with the wonder of flight, of freedom from the shackles of gravity despite the absolute law that governed all that walked the ground. That little what if at the back of everyone's thoughts that, who knows, just maybe, people could really fly if they put their mind to it.

I hopped to the next ring.

And kept floating all the way to the middle of the pool, my speed the same as when I leapt.

Needless to say, my balls couldn't have come up any higher than they already had. "Uh-oh."

I met Narvi's gaze as she looked at the pool I was floating over and looked back into my eyes. "Thomas?!"

My feet dangled over the air as some force held me aloft and descending closer and closer to the water. "Help?!"

"W-wha?!" She snatched my sorry ass out of the air with a quick leap.

Her arms grabbed onto my back and legs before we landed on the ground. But I didn't feel my weight press into her waiting hands. She let go of me and we both watched each other in surprise as I kept afloat. Everyone converged where we stopped after the commotion, and Riveria and Lefiya ran up next to me who was somehow sitting on air.

Still afloat, I said, "At least now I knew what Glide does. Somewhat."

Riveria had always been taller than me, but at a couple inches off the ground, I could level a look back. "Well?" she said. "How did you activate it?"

All at once the force keeping me in the air disappeared and I plopped down to the ground ass first. "Huh."

"Eh?" Lefiya frowned as she extended a hand. I took it, and she pulled me up. "Strange."

I jumped up only to normally have my body pulled back down by gravity. "I had it just now."

Riveria raised a brow. "What were you doing before it happened?"

"I jumped over from there to there." I pointed at the pools, both so damned close to the edge. That was freaky as hell.

Finn walked up to me. "Tom," he said with a not so comforting glint in his eye. "Would you say you're afraid of heights?"

I frowned. "I don't like where this is going."

Finn's bright idea was to dangle me over the floor's edge with his spear, and that was a lot of motivation to dig around for whatever I had in me that triggered the magic in the first place. I wasn't concentrating on doing anything when it happened, and at best there was that instinctive fear against falling, and once I felt that tug from my gut, like that first drop on a roller coaster, that's when the weightlessness kicked in.

The strain of the butt of Finn's spear taut against my armor loosed as the magic took hold, and he slowly pulled me back over to where they all waited. Call it a feeling, call it a sensation, but it was still a certain something I needed to flex or do to get my magic to work. With Answered Prayer, it was like reaching out with my hands, grasping for something that connected me to Loki, but without having to actually move. Kinda like reaching out with my hand by just remembering how to do so, or the image and feel of it in my mind. This one though, was like that tingling feeling in the gut when looking out over great heights, like flexing something just behind my abdominals and halfway between them and my lungs.

Or resisting the grim call to jump.

I gently floated down from where Finn let me go, my arms and legs floating with the rest of me just like my body. However, it wasn't the kind of weightlessness like in water, instead, it was more of a slower fall, like slowly sinking through syrup instead of air with gravity still at work on righting me by pulling me towards the ground.

I let go of the sensation and felt gravity take hold in that split second only to reengage it right after. I slowly floated downwards again to land in the middle of our group.

"That's not something you see every day," Gareth said.

 _Just think happy thoughts, Tom._

Loki, just no.

#

Finn stopped our party by the foot of the Great Waterfall of the twenty-seventh.

The occasional Light Quartz monster proved about as annoying as the hellhounds of the thirteenth and fourteenth floors since they tended to spawn in clumps and shoot out blinding beams of burning light. These were those white crystal monsters with the purple cores within. But the magic stones we could harvest from them were no laughing matter. Turns out these bastards dropped higher quality magic stones than most monsters and together with the shards of their bodies they drop, the two make for good magic focusing materials.

Among other things were the gigantic Blue Crabs and Crystal Turtles that dropped, without surprise, chunks from their thick shells. They made decent armor good to about the thirtieth floor according to Gareth, though their drop rates weren't as good. Valmarth was the local trade name of the gems coming from the turtles and they dropped separately from the shells. Those things raked in a higher price due to their mass to volume ratio. We could make a decent buck with me farming from here and set up a constant train of supporters to ferry up the goods, and in case we were ever strapped for cash, that would be an option.

And really, as fast as the familia could go through cash, we earned it just as fast too. It wasn't coincidence how exploration familias were at the top of the pack, sure, our types didn't command as much of an economic presence but combine that with sheer firepower and the absurd moneymaking prowess of a determined level five and more, and it gets crazy with all the zeros.

Scales, crystal shards, and chunks of shell of assorted colors and sizes littered the cracked floors of the Dungeon, the level fours and I filling our bags to the brim with the varied goodies. After finding the trigger for my magic, it was all a matter of getting used to turning it on and off and getting the nuances of its activation. How accurately did I need to grasp that particular feeling, how fast did it take for the magic to take effect after the trigger, and how well could I sustain the magic while activated and through how many distractions were all key factors I needed to address and the middle of the Dungeon in a floor way lower than I could solo was a bad place to test that in. It would have to wait.

Finn pointed at the torrential flow from the falls, the churning white water thundering against the surface of the lake. Without the distractions of an epic battle going on, I felt the full breadth of the majesty of the gigantic waterform. Looking at it from so close tickled the back of my mind with how large it was, and that the lake went even deeper than could be seen from the clear waters was another interesting point. Where did the water go? But more importantly, where did it come from? Was it sourced from outside? Some deeper floor? And such a large flow had been going on for maybe as long as the beginning of this world, and still it showed no signs of stopping. Magic, was what it was, plain and simple.

"We'll investigate the bottom of the lake here." Finn shared a look with Tione and Tiona. "That recent matter with the Eviluz had me thinking if they used some other entrance to the Dungeon, and this was the easiest choice."

"Aye, the matter with the Leviathan before plugged the hole here up, but we should still check both sides to be sure." He stroked his beard. "Loki's taking care of the permission to exit Orario for a while as we speak."

"And in the meantime, we'll dive down to check thing out," Tione said. Tiona next to her nodded along.

Alicia handed them a small bag of delicate cloth.

"We'll get changed and get it over with." Tione took the bag and Tiona, Aiz, and Alicia went together with her to seek out the cover of some rocks.

Finn met my eyes and broke into a grin. "Cross your fingers we don't see another one of those new species."

Everyone chuckled at that.

Bete and Gareth stayed at the fringes of the group, our formation something like a herd circle with me protected in the middle together with Riveria and Lefiya. I was the only person ill prepared for the place, but the executives and the level fours with us made a point to make the trip as comfortable as possible. Daffyd and his brothers brought up the rest of the perimeter, and it was a rare sight to for the Dungeon to be so meek. I wasn't too used to this sort of tranquility while down here.

"Tom," the captain said. "I'll need to communicate with Loki once the twins come back."

Tione and Tiona returned from changing into these light blue halterneck bikini tops and hotpants, was the best I could call them. The amount of skin they exposed made me a little nervous being down here at such a low floor, but the two didn't look bothered one bit. Tiona leaped straight into the water while Tione gave Finn a wave before running into the water. The lake was so clear that I could see the two descend towards the bottom though the sense of depth was lost with the visual error.

"It'll be a while before they come back," Finn said. "Everyone stay on guard."

Passing idle time like this was a luxury only these first-class adventurers could afford even so deep. They kept their arms with them, always at the ready, but no monsters dared come near us. Three level sixes and a level seven, plus a handful of level fives and fours and little ole level two. I was the odd one out. The Ironhands were talking amongst themselves, while Gareth and Bete took to a little sparring as we waited. Finn just shook his head at them but said nothing, though Riveria seemed to have something else in mind. Alicia and Lefiya stood on either side of Riveria like an entourage, the former broke a chunk of rock off somewhere and presented it to their princess as a stool. The high elf smiled at the gesture a bit stiff but said her thanks and took the offer anyway. Narvi stood by me, my faithful bodyguard, while Aiz simply waited as she was, her sword by her side.

With everyone so relaxed despite the orders, I figured I too could leech off their comfort. I put my bag down on the ground to get a better feel of my new magic. Sure, the risks were there, but it wasn't like I was gonna start flying upwards and away or something. I think. I had yet to see my magic allow me to move as I wished, instead, it had only allowed me to slowly fall towards a direction. Narvi was keeping watch of me while Finn kept close to our two mages.

Still, to just sit and wait was not like me, and they were all keeping the defenses up anyway.

I summoned the sensation as I focused on my magic. Each spell of mine took had its own feel, Answered Prayer built on reaching out, but Despair was built on the thing I called on to summon its power, madness. It was desperation and fear, of the frantic energy of battle that passed within and through my actions. And Saudade, like its namesake, was a longing and a callous demand. That I was willing to do whatever it took. But this… this was, different.

The weight against my knees eased with the rest of my body into the air, and I swam in the sensation of vertigo, like falling through without the drop. I stepped a foot out of thin air as my toes ever so slowly touched the ground, the rest of me supported by nothing but pure magic. Just what was it that was taken by the grimoire to produce this?

I hopped.

And hung in the air with my knees bent, the armor covering me and my weapons all wrapped about in that weightlessness. I reached an arm out as I slowly fell through the air, my forward momentum unimpeded. It was as if the air was holding me aloft even if it shouldn't, like I could rely on it to catch me as I was. My feet glided over the wet stone floor, the uneven edges and bumps far and away from my soles.

Perhaps it was folly, and perhaps it was wonder, but a far-off memory half-remembered made me descend back to the ground, only to take a few steps before jumping forward into a dive, fully committing myself to my magic.

And I rode along the air faster than I took off, only to land on my hands into the ground a few moments later.

Narvi was already crouched next to me. "Why are you smiling?"

I dusted my knees and elbows off as I stood up. "I don't know, happy thoughts?"

Tione and Tione came back to us after another few minutes from the water with nothing new to report. The hole leading towards the exit by Melen was still there, there was nothing strange with it, and barring checking the insides out themselves, there was nothing left to report. I relayed all that to Loki and we cut the investigation short to deliver the goods we collected back to the familia. All preparations were entering the final stages now for the expedition and whatever else we wanted to contribute would go into funding the next one, we were already set for this one.

It was also of note how when Finn and the others went on their own dives, they already scouted the deeper floors already, particularly the ones by the thirty and forty ranges, and any deeper than that would've required an honest effort to mount that carried more risks than the rewards we stood to gain. With this last trip, we'd already achieved the main idea of what Fels asked for, to ensure if the Dungeon was safe for the regular people. Well, not like Fels actually said that, still, the only people concerned with the fiftieth floors and beyond were us and the Freya familias, and to some degree Ganesha, Pele, and Sekhmet familias.

Yes, it wasn't a full picture, but we had enough to conclude that the earlier stages of the Dungeon were as safe as they normally were for us, and for now, Fels would have to be satisfied with that.

What I got from all this though was that maybe Glide wasn't so bad after all. Useful was yet to be determined, but as far as impressions went, it wasn't the horror story I first feared it to be. I couldn't, unfortunately, use it to help lighten the load I carried earlier so there were some bounds to what was considered to be on my person and part of the magic's effects. It wasn't a complete loss, and well, I liked what it allowed at the very least.

We returned to the manor right after and Loki and I contacted Fels with the conclusion we drew. That whatever it was waiting for us lied much Deeper still, and that they could was worse. Add to that their still unidentified methods of transporting monsters from the deeper floors inconspicuously through the eighteenth floor without alerting Rivira was another thing. Gareth picked up our payment by the end, though a little short of expectations was how we got only a single grimoire and a decent bag of gems. It wasn't the best pay out, but still better than any of the regular quests the guild handed out.

And with the rest of the day free, I could focus on what got my attention for now: my new magic.

That thing I did earlier with the pitching myself forward allowed me to cut through the air like a paper plane angled down, like my body served as a facsimile for a wing. I tried it another few times and the results were the same, angling my body downward made me go faster, and angling up tended to make me fall backwards. Staying neutral allowed me to hang in the air for a bit at about the rate of two seconds from a height of a foot to contact the ground.

Gareth also helped me out with getting some standardization into the amount of weight I could carry before my magic would refuse to keep me afloat. In terms of limits, I wasn't able to float at all when carrying any of the things Gareth lent me like shields and swords and stuff, though some of them were significantly lighter than my own great sword which I carried without issue on my back. I also tried flying with my Warhammer and the short sword I was about to return. It worked, but the moment I touched something else it didn't.

We kept up the tests, checking for which materials I could wear without compromising the magic. My armor vest, greaves, and vambraces were the only ones that worked, and anything else didn't. The easiest conclusion was that recognition by the magic required some of me some degree of familiarity with the objects. It was a weird idea, but not entirely impossible.

I kept repeating the tests over and over, checking for which positions were best to do what, and whether pitching left or right would allow me some semblance of steering because with all that, it was possible to get launched into the air and scout out a floor assuming nothing too horrible was lurking by the ceilings.

Eventually, I fell into the black of sleep.

#

Falna Notes:

 **Developmental Abilities**

Madness Spectrum = Grants magic affinity and empowers the user's status, increases magic damage received, requirements for recognition of feats, and susceptibility to mental status effects.

Tranquil Intervention = Increases resistance against mental status effects

World Walker = Increases magic parameters

Fated Actor = Promotes growth of basic abilities

Butcher = Increases abilities and item drop rate when attacking monsters the user has gained exilia from before.

 **Magic**

Answered Prayer = A channeled magic that allows two-way communication with one's patron. Mind consumption is based on distance. Chantless Magic.

Despair = An enchant magic that steeps the user's attacks with the chaos of the World Boundary and enfeebles targets when attacked. Has a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion.

Saudade = An area of effect drain spell that takes the magic and life force contained in all within range and transfers it to the user. Targets stronger than the user are able to resist having their magic and life stolen. Has a five-meter radius, and a chance to inflict madness, fear, or confusion.

Flow = A personal buff that allows one to preserve their inertia of motion regardless of direction. at the cost of Mind.


	19. Vol 2 Interlude 1

**Author's Note:**

This is a bonus, I wasn't really planning on posting this but it felt like such a waste not to.

 **Author's Note 2:**

Hah, and you thought this was a new chapter on the first version. Well, sorry. But no. This is just to announce the rewrite is up like that one reviewer said. Sorry for the bait and switch. But feel free to express your hate or offer criticism on the next version. Seriously. Go ahead and let 'er rip.

With all the love in the world for you fellow geeks and nerds,

ArcMeow

* * *

 **Volume 2**

 **Interlude 1**

There was a wrongness in the way he'd described it.

Tsubaki drew over the lines, making some of them thinner in places, making some of them smoother in others, and still, none of what Thomas described spoke to her as a smith. Yet it called to her all the same. It was grim fascination, even when she couldn't hide her disgust at the dissonance it ground against her pride as an artisan. She was never one for blatant plagiarism, but it was the chance to bring to life something literally out of this world. It was knowledge known only to the gods and Thomas, she just didn't know what to feel at that last one. Tsubaki pressed the charcoal harder against the parchment, emboldening the blade section of the poleaxe he'd drawn.

The smith ran her fingers against the weapon's exaggerated features. From the way he'd told her, she could tell how distant Thomas was from whoever created this abomination. It ate at her how much each feature seethed with murderous intent: in the economy of material, in the hammer's flared striking face, it was even in the poor excuse of an axe head and pike. It was impersonal, too clean and much too easy to shape.

And still she couldn't stop.

Her eye lingered over the raw gems provided her: the mass of strength and gallant rage, and the sublime mystery that pulsated with desire. The former was a simple matter, but the latter held a deeper story to it. It was a longing like his, and yet different, calling to mind instead the naked blade all those years ago. It was close to that, but… more frantic. Wild.

Part of her wanted nothing more than to just let the pieces before her tell her what they wanted to become, but the professional pointed at the other parchment he'd left behind. It was the only thing she felt a connection to, it was in a style completely unlike the _tools_ he'd shown her. He called it the Stormbreaker. It was a curious thing, a hammer and an axe married together like the war pick he'd first asked her to make. Except this one held an unmistakable gravitas. She didn't understand what sort of epic could've produced such a beast coming from someone like Thomas. He said it was the weapon forged for a dying god during his last breaths, but then wasn't it he who said there were no gods in his world in the first place? She shook her head. Regardless of whatever else he said, it was still the only one with a name.

Tsubaki looked at the other sketches she'd asked of Thomas: the bardiche, the executioner's axe, the zweihander, the ginunting, to name a few, he drew them with little uncertainty, but the familiarity was there. She compared his drawings to her own knowledge, of how swords were either one or two handed, or how long they were and whether their blades were straight, double-edged, or curved, but she knew no such thing as what to call a specific _kind_ of sword. It was jarring to have a name for so many forms of what she understood to be a _sword_. The bastard, the hand and a half, the great sword, the claymore, the arming sword, and those were only the ones she understood as the basic form, there were even such things known as swords like the rapier, the khopesh, the katana, the kampilan, the shotel, the dao… there were so many that it baffled her just how many people it took to form such distinctive designs.

But it was also in their differences that she saw where their purpose was.

No matter how different the forms, they all shared in that same focus on efficiency and ease, as if they were intended to be easily made by others. That the economy of their creation may or may not have been due to a lack of material, but rather, a need for more. And to have the basic form evolve into so many ways spoke of only one thing: a large enough demand. And try as the gods might of hiding it, there were but a few events that could truly galvanize a people into limiting such needs.

War.

These things Thomas had drawn for her, these were not weapons made for heroes, rather they were made for soldiers. Protection around the hands told her there was even a need to fight in such close quarters even with a blade, and these grooves in the middle of some of the designs were for reducing weight and material used. It was even in the shapes of the tips with how some were intended for stabbing and others with heavier blades for chopping. Just what terrible deeds had these nameless weapons done as they were birthed in the thousands? Ten thousands? Hundred thousands?

Her fingers ran cold against the blazing heat of her forge. What sort of place did Thomas come from that they'd have a need for so many swords, clubs, hammers, spears, arrows, bows, and who knew just how many there really were? She looked through the other sketches with a fervor. It was a pleasure that gripped her heart, a bittersweet longing to unearth the blood shed for these tools to come to be.

Only through _generations_ of war could such radical changes have come about. Some she recognized had similarities from the first manuscripts shared by the gods, but theirs were purer in intent while these told of specific needs. A curve in the blade to allow for higher concentration of power, an exaggerated curve to come past defenses, a heavy blade to destroy others' blades, they were sinister and built for their intended use. To kill others. But the gods' weapons had no such care for the subtleties of the ones from Thomas's world. Perhaps it was foolishness that caused their saviors to share these blank canvasses, and knowing the gods that was likely the cause, but to have such knowledge within their grasp all this time grated at her.

To not make use of all of one's gift was to insult the meaning of others' work. The pursuit of perfection was a road that cared not for privilege, only of tenacity. It was desire first and foremost that wrought the best out of the mundane, and it was only with iron wills that legends were made.

Tsubaki renewed her grip on her hammer. Who was she to say no to such good graces? If Thomas dared enough to share the knowledge of his world, then who was she to ignore such? It was her duty to take all he'd given her and make them her own. The only thing missing now was if he also knew what materials they used. She looked at the horns they'd given her, the rawness of them calling to her instincts as a smith, touching them would have to wait. First, she needed to vent all these thoughts.

The high smith walked over to the curved sword hanging above her forge, its curved blade she now understood to be called a katana. She licked her lips.

It was time for a little shopping trip down the Dungeon.


End file.
